Emotionless
by KaiPhoenix
Summary: Emotionless...that was what she was. She never cared what happened to others, nor what happened to herself. Life was not lived, it was taken. Pain was the only way one knew that one was alive, although it gave no satisfaction to one's existence. That was
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_Emotionless...that was what she was. She never cared what happened to others, nor what happened to herself. Life was not lived, it was taken. Pain was the only way one knew that one was alive, although it gave no satisfaction to one's existence. That was the way that life was and always would be._

She hadn't noticed when the snake brought back his new toy. She didn't really care what that cold monster did with his time nor did she care who came to him and who he killed in his insane bid on immortality. She was here by no will of her own though she would do as she was told. This was her existence (it could not rightly be called a life). This was what she had been born to, and this was how she would die. There was no getting around it, there was no escaping. She had given up on that foolish idea from the start.

After all, who would welcome a monster?

She did not delude herself into thinking that Otogakure would ever accept her. That would be plain lunacy. She did not allow herself to think that even the snake, Orochimaru, would come to be grateful for the work that she did. He owned her; it was as simple as that. She was an object; a machine that did was she was told to do. Nothing more and a very great deal less.

She first took notice of the new toy when she was assigned by the snake to train with him. She was not given the dark youth's name or any such information on him. She was simply told to spar with him, hone the reflexes of his body and help increase his stamina. She was also informed to teach him how to apply certain healing techniques to himself during a battle. Presumably so he could heal himself from the damage she would inflict upon him from the sparring. After all, Kabuto couldn't always look after Orochimaru's toys, no matter what the snake was planning on doing with it.

She did not speak to the youth when he was left in the caves with her. She simply waited until the snake and his pet beetle had left, then sprang at him. He was slightly startled, she was small, and he hadn't been expecting her to lash out at him with such ferocity. She did not attack with anything but her own body. Her arms whipped past his head, barely skimming his hair as he belatedly realized what she was doing. Her legs struck up under where his body was landing, striking him in the chest as he came down, sending him flying into a wall. He recovered and kicked off the wall instead of slamming against it. He responded by throwing kunai in her direction, at least, what used to be her direction. She was behind him in less than a heartbeat, twisting his arms behind his back.

She was holding a log. She didn't smile; academy cadets could use the substitution technique. She dropped the log out of her way and closed her eyes. She could feel the air around her, she could hear his movements.

There was a flurry of movement, ending with the dark youth pinned to the cold ground beneath her, a hand at the base of his skull. She could hear his uneven breathing, he was angry. She could feel the pulse of the curse-mark on his shoulder; it responded to his anger, his rage. She did not flinch as it slowly spread across his body. She did not scream as he abruptly flipped their positions. She looked into swirling red eyes, but felt nothing. She swept her right arm at his outstretched left arm that held her off the ground. He dropped her and blocked, but not quick enough to stop her other arm from grabbing his neck, knocking the air out of him, but not crushing his windpipe. His body went limp, and she dropped him to the floor.

She looked down at the unconscious boy. No matter how old he looked, her instincts told her that he was nothing more than an angry boy. Even in his unconscious state he seemed angry. She did not move to tend to the few wounds that she had inflicted upon him; she didn't even move to cover him to keep him from getting cold. The markings that had spread across his body earlier receded. She sighed; he relied too much on the snake's power.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer:I do not own Naruto or anything else affiliated with Kishimoto-sensei, nor is it my intention to infringe upon any existing copyright...(forgot to put this in the first chapter...oops sweatdrops hehe...)

Chapter 2

"Who are you?"

She did not answer the youth, she merely looked at him. He flinched a little at the dead look in her eyes, though his body did not move at all. He flinched in his eyes, she knew the look. It asked her what had happened. It asked her why she was not alive in her eyes as was every living thing. No matter how hard one's life had been, there was always the look of life in a person's eyes. Her eyes held none of this trait; they were as blank as a corpse's eyes. She did not find amusement in finding this question in his eyes. Amusement was emotion, and there was no place for emotions in her existence.

Silence stretched around them as he dropped his eyes away from hers.

"Fine, don't answer my question. I don't really care."

She did not respond to the annoyance in his voice. It betrayed his emotions, as if he was uncertain about why he was here in this place at all. His eyes were sad and he was still angry. The mark on his shoulder pulsed once again and he cursed. She did not flinch at his language nor at the murderous look that he shot her. She knew that look even better than she knew the one that had been in his eyes before.

He wanted to kill her.

"Why did you come here?"

He flinched away from her and dropped his eyes once again, "That's none of your business."

She continued to look at him, unrelenting. He stared at the ground or the wall, anything but her. Finally, he spoke:

"Are you going to teach me those self-healing jutsus or what?"


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: ...see dislaimer in chapter 2...

Chapter 3

He dodged her punch and kicked at her head. She grabbed his leg and twisted his body onto the ground. He swept his other leg under both of hers, sending them both sprawling to the ground. He landed on top of her with his left hand clasped around her throat, squeezing hard enough to kill, curious to see if she could escape from his hold. She didn't twitch, didn't try to release herself from his hold.

Didn't try to stop him from crushing her windpipe.

She merely stared into his eyes, already dead.

He dropped his hand away from her throat, and stepped away from her. Afraid of what he saw, and afraid of what it showed him. Afraid of what it said about who he was. She did not rise from the ground. She did not move to heal herself, she simply lay there. He did not move to aid her at all; he didn't know what to do. This was the first time that he had actually injured her. He stared as the blood frothed in her mouth, though she did not move to wipe it away. Her eyes, which always seemed dead, shone with an emotion for the first time since he had met her. He didn't know what the emotion was and he wasn't certain that he wanted to find out.

They had been in these caves for several months. She would spar with him; she fought him whenever he felt like and a great many times when he didn't. She taught him jutsus to use to heal himself as she didn't try to help him when he was injured. She did not use the same jutsus on herself, though it never seemed to cause her any trouble during their sparring. She was not easily injured for she was not easily caught.

She swallowed her blood and blinked._ So close... Why did he let go?_ She turned her eyes to him once she had regained her feet. He did not look at her, he didn't speak. He stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching them, as if he had never seen them before. She stared at him, though he did not look at her.

After several minutes, he turned his gaze away from his hands and looked at her. His eyes widened as he saw no sign that she had been injured at all, except for her clothing. Her throat had very nearly been crushed from their sparring earlier. The skin that had been dark with purplish bruises was a smooth, even peach color; as if he had never tried to kill her at all. The only blood on her was dried and flaking off. She had swallowed the blood that had been in her mouth. Her clothing was dirty, but she had no wounds to speak of.

"What are you?" He was startled by the sound of his own voice.

They had not spoken since their first spar when she had knocked him unconscious. When he had awoken, he had asked her who she was. Her only answer had been to ask him why he was here. That question had hurt more than he thought it would. It brought back memories, memories that he had kept trying to bury.

Up until now he had not thought anything about the person left to train him while Orochimaru deemed it unnecessary to train Sasuke himself. They had been living together in this forsaken place and he had not thought about anything except growing stronger, learning the jutsus she taught him without words. Now that he actually thought about it, the only time she had used any chakra was to show him how the healing jutsus worked. She had only fought him using taijutsu, while he had used everything that he had known against her. And this was the first time that he had been able to injure her.

Only she wasn't wounded.

She did not answer the question. She stared into his eyes with her dead ones as if the question hadn't been asked at all. Sweat trickled down his forehead as the silence became, for the first time, deafening.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer:...see disclaimer from chapter 2...

Chapter 4

"Why did you come here?"

Her question echoed around him, he blinked and looked into her eyes. They were as dead as before. No flicker of emotion ever showed in those amber orbs. He jumped a little; he had never noticed that her eyes were amber. He didn't know anything about what she looked like or what kind of person she was. He didn't look away from her eyes, though he desperately wanted to. Now that he had actually thought about it, he wanted to know more about the person who had been training him for all these months.

He had been alone since coming to Otogakure. Oh, he had been surrounded by the shinobi of this village, sparred with a great deal of them, spent time in meetings with others. It only enhanced the feeling of loneliness that had engulfed him since leaving Konohagakure. Since trying to kill someone he cared about the most. Since he had tried to become like the person he hated the most.

It was his choice to condemn himself to this. There was no room for him to complain about what his life had become.

He didn't want to answer her question. Answering her question would only be admitting to something that he refused to even think about. This was his choice, his decision. He had chosen to become the avenger, throwing away everything that he had gained from his previous life. So why did a part of him ache? Why did a part of him want to leave this place that he had been in for over a year? Why did he feel as if a part of him wanted someone to ease the loneliness that had become his life?

She looked away from his eyes, towards the entrance to the caves, when he didn't answer. He took that opportunity to see what she looked like. Her hair was flame-colored and pulled back into a tail at the base of her skull. Her clothing was a nondescript combination of brown and gray, but styled in an older fashion of ninja. The sleeves did not end at her wrists; they formed gloves over her hands. The pant legs went down to her ankles and continued off as boots without a break in the fabric. Her shirt's collar rounded around her neck in a circle. She had a shuriken holder strapped to her left leg, she was left handed. A katana handle peeked over her left shoulder. Her skin was an even peach color, as nondescript as the rest of her; all he could see of her skin was from her neck up.

The only thing memorable about her was the lack of life in her eyes.

She turned her dead gaze back to his.

"The snake will come today to see how far you have come."


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: ...see disclaimer in chapter 2...

Chapter 5

He ducked as she kicked out, grabbing her leg and flinging her into the cavern wall. She flipped in the air and kicked off of the wall, launching herself at him. He threw several kunai in her direction as he dodged her lunge. His kunai clattered to the ground as her shuriken deflected them from their intended path.

They had been sparring for more than an hour already without either gaining the advantage. Orochimaru watched from a safe location away from the combat zone of the main cavern. He seemed pleased with the intensity that was going into the match. Pleased with the level that his new body was fighting with. Pleased that the former Konoha ninja was still alive after being left alone with the Oto Youkai for 4 months. Maybe he should leave Sasuke with her for another 4 months and see how far he would come, and see if anything might develop with his pet.

He had no doubts that Sasuke would become stronger from fighting with his pet. He was simply curious to see what would happen to her if she was left alone with the young man. Curious to see if the avenger could melt the ice that was her heart. She might be more willing to open that void in her chest to someone who was similar in temperaments to herself, at least as far as having no love of life. She was no avenger, but she was a killing machine, and Sasuke had given himself over to Orochimaru knowing that he would become such a machine. If a little different in general use and purpose.

Maybe he could breed the two together. He had tried breeding her to others, but they weren't strong enough to actually hold her down long enough. She had killed them all with an ease that was a little humiliating to say the least, and extremely aggravating. He scowled to himself momentarily. His pet normally followed all of his instructions to the letter. Getting her to reproduce of her own free will was the one assignment that she absolutely refused to do.

He stopped scowling for a moment as he watched Sasuke actually hit her with a chidori, knocking the young woman to the ground in a burst of energy. She was bleeding sluggishly from her left arm where the attack had hit. She didn't even glance at it as she responded with a combination of kicks and punches, driving Sasuke against a wall and cracking her leg into his head. Her wound was gone in a matter of moments, leaving only dried blood to show that she had even been hurt.

Sasuke's eyes flashed crimson, but he was too slow to avoid the attack. His head smashed violently into the wall, leaving behind an outline of his skull. He blinked and performed a few quick hand seals, activating a healing jutsu that would keep him conscious and start the slow healing process. His sharingan stayed active and he used the added ability to his advantage, driving the young woman back using techniques that he had learned from others.

Orochimaru smiled to himself. Having the sharingan abilities tied together with the particular traits of his pet would be very advantageous. He would then have a seemingly endless supply of bodies to use in the future when the old ones wore out. Maybe he could even get that healing ability of hers to lessen so he could actually possess one of her children. Of all the abilities that he had worked with to get into her line, that had been the most difficult one to get. It was also a bit of a nuisance when he discovered that it was strong enough to keep him from possessing her body.

He watched them, observing how Sasuke continued to vary his attacks with a combination of taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. Meanwhile, the young woman used only taijutsu. And while she wasn't defeating him as swiftly as she probably had in the earlier months of their training, she certainly wasn't losing to him. She was holding her own, and so was Sasuke.

Yes, he smiled, breeding her was a very good idea, and enhancing the sharingan line with her blood would prove useful in one way or another. No one ever accused him of not making an opportunity to strengthen Otogakure out of a failed attempt from something else. His smile wavered for a moment. All that was left was getting at least one of them to agree to the idea.


	6. Chapter 6

**Dislcaimer: **...see chapter 2 disclaimer...

Chapter 6

She stood beside the dark youth and before the snake. Her breathing steady and even despite the battle with the young man only moments before. They had been given 15 minutes to rest after the demonstration. She had taken the time to pull her clothing straight across her slim body and to run her fingers through her shoulder length hair before pulling it behind her head in a small tail once more. She had also mended the only tear on her clothing, the place on her left arm where she had been hit with the chidori. She deftly pulled the threaded needle through the fabric with one hand without removing her clothing to do so.

She did not glance at the youth beside her. He was still panting slightly, he was tired. He had bandaged himself as well as he could without help, which she did not offer. He had employed the healing techniques that she had taught him, but he wasn't completely healed from her attacks. He had run out of usable chakra, if he used anymore he could go into overextension and collapse. His clothing was ripped where she had cut him and she knew that he would have to mend it himself this night. The snake had better things to do with his time than to worry about the attire of those under him.

She did not look into the eyes of the man that owned her. She didn't even think about him. As long as she didn't allow herself the thoughts of a human she wouldn't feel the pain that came with it.

"I am very pleased with the progress that you have been making, Sasuke." the snake did not smile, he sneered, "However, you are still much too weak to even _think_ about defeating your brother. I'm afraid that you will have to stay another 4 months in confinement with my pet."

His sneer grew as Sasuke's posture became much more rigid. She did not comment, she would do as she was told. She felt nothing about this turn of events. Initially, she had been told that she would train with the youth until Orochimaru deemed his training complete. She knew nothing of the boy himself (her instincts continued to tell her that he was nothing more than a child). She did not understand the hostility that was radiating off the boy at the mention of a brother. She did not care, though she would continue to do as she was told.

The snake-like man turned his eyes to the young woman who had shown no change of expression since he had entered. He wanted to laugh to himself; she hadn't shown any change of expression even in her sleep for over 10 years. She was the perfect killing machine. Better than any shinobi that he had ever seen or heard of, better even than himself. She felt even less than the Suna jinchuuriki that he had used in his attack on Konohagakure almost 3 years ago. He motioned for her to join him near the entrance of the caverns.

"I want to know your assessment of the boy."

"He is too angry; he allows his emotions to cloud nearly everything that he does. He is quick to learn the techniques that we have used both the healing jutsus and the taijutsu, although he will never be the equal of a truly experienced taijutsu master." She continued her report in precise statements, adding nothing more than was necessary, using no emotion. Her voice void of not only emotion, but of life. "I don't think that there will be any problems with your taking control of his body with his emotions so out of control."

She had never cared about his habit of taking other bodies to remain alive, but she had never commented upon it, negatively or positively. To actually hear the way she stated it without any type of inflection in her voice…It sounded as if she was describing something unnecessary, but something that she didn't care about regardless of its necessity.

**A/N:** I realize that some of you may find these types of messages annoying...but i am curious to see what people think of my first upload...do you people like this thing? Would future stories by Kai be welcome? 'Cause I have others...I'm just chicken about putting 'em on here...


	7. Chapter 7

**disclaimer**: I do not own Naruto or anything else affiliated with him or Kishimoto-sensei...I do, however, own my as of yet unnamed female character and her miserable life.

Chapter 7

Sasuke carefully patched the tears in his clothing, squinting against the darkness of the cave and using the light of the fire before him. He sighed to himself; it had been almost 3 months since he had seen anyone other than his trainer. He would even have put up with Kabuto at this point. Orochimaru hadn't said anything else to him after informing him of his deficiencies when he had come to check on Sasuke after the first 4 months of training. The snake had simply left after discussing something with the flame haired woman.

Sasuke still didn't know her name. She had said nothing to him after their fight so he had said nothing to her in return. The silence had continued throughout the past weeks. She had continued to spar with him, driving him to get better and better. He sighed again; he hadn't felt this kind of need to get better since he had been on Team 7. He scowled to himself; of course it was because he felt the need to get better that he had left Team 7. He had thought that it was impossible to become stronger while remaining in Konoha as a member of said team. Now, he wasn't so sure...

He shook his head and slipped his shirt back over his head and ducked as he felt the air behind him stir. He spun and rested his eyes upon the flame haired woman. She did not attack him; her eyes held his as she lifted her hands and performed a few simple hand signs. She waited patiently for him to copy the signs that she had presented. He ignored the signs and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him with her dead amber orbs.

He sweatdropped as he realized that this was the first time since Orochimaru's visit that she had looked him in the eyes. She had battled with him, almost killing him several times since he had been tested in front of the snake, but she had refused to make direct eye-contact since.

His eyes widened as he realized that she had not used any chakra when showing him the hand signs. He slowly copied the movements, but with chakra this time. His eyes dilated as a torrent of pain was unleashed from the curse-seal near the base of his skull. He did not scream although his hand moved jerkily towards the mark in a futile attempt to stop the pain. He hunched over, nearly losing his balance as another torrent swept through his body from the pulsing mark.

She stared at him showing no more emotion than she ever did. Her eyes held nothing, hiding nothing. Showing no response to the pain he was in.

He dropped to his knees as memories that he had suppressed resurfaced in his mind.

He saw his brother killing their clan, their parents…

His pupils dilated and he whimpered as he remembered staring into those blood soaked eyes for the first time…

He felt overwhelming fear in his heart as he saw senbon needles finding their way towards his first friend, his only friend…

He felt the pain of death as it threatened to engulf him as he 'died' for that friend…

He felt the anguish as he realized that he couldn't protect his friends from the monster that the sand-nin was becoming…

His mind burned with humiliation as he realized that he was weaker than someone he had always considered far his inferior…

He did not scream. He did not cry out. No sound was heard from him other than that first whimper.

Then he remembered what it felt like to push his hand through the body of the one that he cared the most about, the first person he had let inside his heart since the betrayal of his brother…

He screamed as he remembered the desire to kill the one that had become more a brother than ever his real blood…

She stared at him as he collapsed to the floor, clutching the throbbing curse-mark on his shoulder. Through his fingers she could see the swirl of angry colors as the curse-mark began to dissolve off of his skin.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her eyes opened and met his before turning to look over his shoulder towards the entrance of the caves. He turned his own gaze parallel to hers and started when he heard the sound of footsteps coming closer.

**A/N:** I know...this chapter was, like the ones before it, miserably short...the next shapter is short too, but they need to be short so I can get them up without overloading myself before I get to the more story-progressing chapters. These short chapters help to set the base for the rest of the story, although I am planning on having later chapters be longer...hopefully sweatdrops...I'm not very good at this...


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto nor anything else affiliated with Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter 8

"W-what did you do to me?" he managed to gasp out after what seemed like hours yet mere minutes at the same time. He wasn't sure how long he had been on the ground clutching at his shoulder. He looked up at her through his raven -colored hair.

She was silent as he slowed his breathing to a more normal rate. This had hurt more than anything she had done to him before. This had hurt on an entirely different level. One he had tried to seal away in his mind since coming to Otogakure. He had avoided his memories of everything except the blind rage at his brother for what he had done.

He growled at the silent woman before launching himself at her. Her dead eyes representing everything that he hated. Everything that he wanted to destroy in this one moment of understanding. Understanding that he would never be able to do what he had set out to do because he just didn't have the necessary hate.

When all was said and done, he just didn't want to be dead inside like that snake that he had bartered his body to. Dead like his elder brother. Dead like the woman who stood impassively before him.

He kicked at her head. She dodged and grabbed his leg in one smooth motion, sending him flying into a wall. He rolled and rebounded drawing and throwing shuriken at her. She leapt over the metal stars and sliced at him with a kunai he had not noticed in her hand. His arm burned momentarily where she had struck, but he ignored it and grabbed her arm as it swung at him again. He twisted it painfully behind her back and stared down into her eyes when she made no immediate move to release herself.

She made no sound, only stared back into his eyes. She dropped the kunai and swept her legs under his, knocking him to the floor. He didn't let go of her arm, bringing her down with him. He pinned her underneath him, surprised when she went limp.

"What did you do to me?" he demanded again, glaring into her empty amber eyes with his obsidian ones.

She closed her eyes and spoke quietly. If they had been anywhere but in a cave he would have never heard her.

"I gave you what you wished for."

He stared at her, not fully comprehending what she had said.

"W-what do you mean?"

His voice was a whisper, quiet yet demanding. Firm, yet afraid. As if he didn't want to know what the answer was, but, at the same time, couldn't resist his need to know.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her eyes opened and met his before turning to look over his shoulder towards the entrance of the caves. He turned his own gaze parallel to hers and started when he heard the sound of footsteps coming closer.

**A/N:** there, hopefully that is the last of the short chapters...i don't even have the next chapter started yet. I know what I want to do with this story, but it's hard to get it to where i need it to, sighs...writing your own fanfiction is painful


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything else affiliated with this story. They belong to Kishimoto-sensei. I only own the Oto no Youkai, my pathetic creation.

Chapter 9

"How could you allow this to happen?"

He lashed out at her with his right hand, striking her across the face. Her cheek reddened slightly, but her head remained motionless, her eyes empty. The redness faded after a few moments, but the young woman made no move to reproach the snake-like man before her for the callous way in which he was treating her. He had always treated her as something that needed punishment if she did something that he didn't approve of in the faintest way possible. It didn't really help that, at the moment, she had done something that would set the Snake Sannin back for centuries in obtaining that which he had wanted since he had first become interested in the Uchihas.

She had removed the curse-mark from the Uchiha heir by way of a specific healing jutsu that would forever make it impossible for the immortality bent _thing_ (there was no conceivable way to even think of Orochimaru as a man, much less a human) to ever leave his mark on the young man again. Orochimaru would never be able to possess Sasuke. It rankled him that it was a freak accident.

The jutsu in question had been tested many times before on various Oto shinobi, both those with and without the curse-mark. None of those test subjects (of course the shinobi used in the tests had no idea that they had been used as little more than lab rats) had had this particular reaction to the technique. In fact, in the majority of the cases, they had become stronger or been able to last longer under the affects of the curse-mark before their bodies started to corrode.

The jutsu had been initially created in an attempt to help cure Kimimaru, although the best that it had been able to do was to keep the Dead Bone user from dying right after being given the curse-mark. It had, regrettably, been unable to cure him of the affliction that was killing him, and so, made it impossible for Orochimaru to use the now dead young man as his own vessel.

The jutsu _had_ been cleared to be given to the Uchiha heir, but no one could have foreseen this turn of events.

Orochimaru, naturally, placed the blame upon the one who had been teaching the young man instead of upon the ones who had cleared the technique's use on the boy. Of course, seeing a how _he_ had been the one to give the jutsu to the girl to teach to his future vessel did nothing for his temper. He lashed out at the young woman before him using numerous jutsu and weapons, although he did not employ his Kusanagi in the chastisement of his pet. That would be taking things a little too far, even in his own twisted mind. It might take her out of action for a day at the very most, true, but that was one day too many. She was not allowed to have rest periods for any reason at all. Even if it was his own fault that she required rest to recuperate from her injuries.

He didn't stop his abuse of the poor creature until he was called away to take care of some other important matter. Something that actually required him to come as the Otokage instead of just as himself.

She watched, not caring, as he closed the wooden door behind himself. She did see the robes denoting his official status as a Kage over a Hidden Village being handed to him by his grey-haired sycophant before the door was fully closed. _Must be something to do with one of the other Hidden Villages then, the snake never wears his formal robes for anything else._ She didn't really care what the snake was doing or where he was going.

Her injuries had already started to heal themselves as soon as he had stopped hitting her. Now the only proof that she had been injured at all was the drying blood on her black clothing. She stripped off her clothing once she was once again in her own rooms and sewed the rips in the clothing back together efficiently, using her own hair as thread. Her hair was much stronger than the thread that she had been using before her hair had grown out to this length. A side effect of being a demon, she guessed. Her hair could be used as effectively as ninja wire when she wanted to, though she had never really tried.

She slipped back into her clothing and retied her hair back absentmindedly. If the stupid wasn't so darn useful, then she would just cut it all off. She sighed to herself before locking that part of her mind back into it's corner and taking up her wakizashi in her hands. It had been a few months since she had used it.

After the fiasco with the Uchiha heir (she knew his name now and she had been taught to use names for things once she had learned them…when she didn't do so…the results were not desirable) he had been quarantined. Only Kabuto and Orochimaru were allowed to see or work with him. She herself had not seen hide nor hair of the young man that she had been training for almost a year since they had been discovered so soon after the completion of the disastrous healing jutsu.

She still did not know very much about the dark youth, although she found it hard to really care. Then again, she found it hard to care about anything. He did cause her to pause and think a little more than usual, though she wasn't really sure why. It was almost as if he was somehow the key to getting her out of this Haven-forsaken place.

One way or another, anyway.

**----------Scene Change----------**

Sasuke leafed through his book once more. Life for the past few months hadn't been as interesting lately. He knew why, but it didn't help matters at all.

His curse-mark had dissolved, and no matter how hard Orochimaru tried, he wasn't able to re-mark the Uchiha. Sasuke wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this new development in his life. On one hand, he could think more clearly now than he had been able to since he had gotten the curse-mark in the first place. On the other hand, he couldn't feel that overpowering sense of strength that had flowed through him since he had first activated the mark on accident in the Forest of Death during the Chunin Exams 2 and a half years ago.

He hadn't seen his trainer since the jutsu malfunction that had put him in Kabuto's 'tender care' for a few weeks. He wasn't sure what he would do once he did see the young woman again.

He shook his head and placed his book on a table by his bed. He had read through most of the scrolls and quite a few of the books in Orochimaru's library. He was rapidly running out of things to take his mind off of the things that the young woman had brought up into his mind during his time with her.

In the time that he had been away from her training regimen he had learned a few things about the woman. She had no real name, or if she did, it was one that none knew save for herself and perhaps Orochimaru. She was simply known as the Oto Youkai, Sound Demon. She was aptly named, although it would probably have been more accurate to call her the Oto no Youkai, Demon of the Sound. She did not use any specific Sound techniques in her fighting style, at least as far as he knew.

She was sent on the highest level of missions that were capable in Otogakure. And she always returned without so much as a scratch on her body. Occasionally there would appear to be a tear in her clothing, but it was always small and easily fixed, usually with one of her own hairs. Sasuke had learned that particular detail by living with her for almost a year. After training with her, he wasn't surprised at her reputation, although some things did seem a little farfetched, even to him.

It was said that she only ever spoke to Orochimaru and that, when they did speak, it was in a language only known to demons. He scoffed at that one right off, after all, she had spoken to him. All right, she hadn't really ever said very much to him, but she _had_ spoke in Japanese clearly and without an accent. If she did speak any other languages, then she had at least learned Japanese since she was very young.

She did not socialize with others, probably as a result of being away from Otogakure most of the time on some crazy mission. She held no real rank among the shinobi of the village, and had no headband. The shinobi of the village didn't really like to talk about her unless they knew for a fact that she wasn't within 100 meters of Otogakure, and even then, it was extremely difficult to get anything out of them.

He knew nothing about her childhood except for the fact that she had apparently been with Orochimaru from birth at the very least. Sasuke didn't think that Orochimaru raised the woman when she had been a girl. Sure, he had probably had a hand in her training, but Sasuke suspected that the Snake Sannin hadn't taken as personal an interest in developing the girl's emtions towards trust and loyalty as he had done with some of his other top tools, shinobi or not. The Sound four were a prime example of those who gave their loyalty to the old snake without question.

Sasuke wondered what was so different about the Oto no Youkai that Orochimaru would treat her as even less than a tool when she was so much more productive in results than any of his other tools.

**A/N:** Well, I think that might have been the longest chapter that I have ever written for a work of fanfiction, and certainly was the longest one written for this particular story. So...watch y'all think? Please let me know if you find it in your kind hearts to review...or not, I'll live, although it is rather nice to know what people think...


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **I do not now nor have ever owned anything that is even remotely related to Naruto, except form my Gaara pillow, so all rights belong to Kishimoto-sensei. I do own my Oto no Youkai and her miserable existence.

Chapter 10

He bashed his head a few more times against the stone wall he rested against to chastise himself for his stupidity. Had he really thought that the Snake would just let him leave the Village once he was no longer being controlled? _Idiot! More of a baka than Naruto ever was!_

It no longer hurt quite so much to think of his once best friend. Oh, it still caused him discomfort, especially when he thought of how they had parted. He had tried to kill him, and for something as stupid as trying to save him! He had tried to kill the first person to ever see him as himself and not as something he was not.

Naruto hadn't seen the Uchiha name or eyes. Hadn't seen the foolish little brother, or the pathetic son. He had seen _Sasuke_. Only one other had ever seen Sasuke and not something else, but she had died, killed by a son that had been pushed too far too young. Killed by the maniac that the Uchihas had created.

He could admit it now to himself. His clan had been very foolish in how they treated their children; training them to always be the best, the top shinobi. Very few in his clan had ever lasted through life and remained mentally stable. The only one that he could recall being anywhere near a picture of mental health from his younger years would have been his second cousin. Uchiha Obito, who had died at the age of 13 on a mission near the Village Hidden in the Stone. The only comfort was in the fact that at least his clan hadn't separated the family into a main and branch house as cruelly as the Hyuugas; how could they live knowing that half of their blood relatives were regarded as slaves?

Didn't mean they were much better, just meant that they didn't separate the family as a result of when they or their parents were born in regards to firstborn or whatever. No, his clan separated them on a basis of whether they had activated the sharingan and then classified them even further on what skill level they were at. This wouldn't have been quite so bad, the system had actually been a lot more fair when it had first been enacted. It helped to assign each family member to what they could and couldn't handle in regards to protecting Konohagakure as a part of the Village's Military Police Force.

Things didn't stay that way though. As with all things over time, the system became corrupted and filled with those that only sought out power for their own means instead of for protecting those weaker than themselves. There were still those who didn't try to gain just for the sake of it, but even those individuals weren't mentally stable by any definition of the word either. Each child born was pressed into becoming the best the fastest they were able to. Not to say that each parent was doing so for harmful purposes. Many believed that it was the best thing for their child. To help them survive in the world that their clan had created for daily life.

Not to say that the clan would kill off the weak, but they could be very cruel. Most of the Clan Council had lost sight of just what it was they were supposed to be doing. His own father had been among them, though he hadn't been able to see it at the time. He was a child after all, and his mother had tried her hardest to shelter him as much as possible. It didn't stop him from seeing certain things happening in his family, but he had been young and hadn't fully understood just what he had seen at the time. That, and after the Massacre, he had suppressed all but the best of his memories deep into his own mind.

The cursed Heaven seal hadn't helped matters either, nor had the constant pressure to restore the honor of his clan's name. He hadn't been able to think clearly for most of his life, nobody had ever tried to counsel him after the deaths of his family, he wasn't ever sure just why. The Hokage would have done something, he was sure of that, but the man had been old and worn from life. He had tried, Sasuke remembered that much, but the old man had a whole Village to watch over, he hadn't had the time to take special care of one child.

Sasuke snorted to himself. The man should have never had to take upon himself the role of Hokage actively again, but things in life never went as we would have them go. It wasn't the old man's fault that his successor had died so young or that those who could have succeeded him were never in contact enough to take up the mantle anew. He hadn't known the reasons then and he wasn't so sure what the reasons for their seeming abandonment of Konoha was now. His _mentor_ hadn't seen fit to inform him of just why his old teammates had left Konoha before he was born. Not that he had wanted to know before now.

His thoughts wandered further, moving away from Konoha's politics for a moment and onto a more painful route.

His brother.

He hadn't thought of his brother in such a long time. Well, he had thought of the murder that he had become, but he hadn't thought of the boy that his brother had been before the Massacre. His brother wasn't the killer that had destroyed their clan. No, his brother was one of the casualties. He died that night as much as their parents. He had been an innocent, an innocent that had died inside just as surely as any of the others of their clan that had gained their sharingan so early in life.

Too much power too young was a dangerous thing. It could kill everyone around the holder as much as the holder themselves.

He knew that as much as anyone else.

Look what had happened to him.

He had lost himself to the tainted power of the cursed seal that Orochimaru had placed upon him. He had tried to kill his best friend, the person that had become like the little brother he used to be.

He had become something to be detested.

Sasuke closed his eyes and wrapped his head sharply against the stone wall behind him several more times. Now was not the time to be feeling pity for himself. He glanced at the locked door of his room once more. Now was the time to be figuring out a way out of this snake-infested place.

He had tried to leave earlier, but that had only landed him locked in his room with chakra suppression seals firmly secured to his limbs. He had half expected them to throw him in a dungeon cell or something, but then he had remembered that he was to be the new body of the Snake, couldn't have him be injured. He was fed regularly and sedated and force-fed through an IV if he didn't feed himself properly. He didn't read to pass the time anymore. The books had been taken from him the first time he had tried to starve himself.

There were no windows. The only way in or out of the room was through the door in front of him. The door that only opened when Kabuto, and the Oto ANBU that always accompanied the medi-nin, would enter for Sasuke's weekly check-up. The food was slid under the door on a sheet of paper inscribed with a seal on it. The food would appear from the sealed paper and then become useless, only to burst into flame as soon as he had consumed the food.

Speaking of which, his dinner had just arrived.

Fantastic.

**----------Scene Change----------**

She glanced up momentarily towards the entrance of the compound before looking back down at the ground. The Snake was returning from that meeting that he had to go to earlier. He had taken the silver-haired medi-nin with him. They were to meet with one of his old Akatsuki brethren.

The puppet master.

She had met him briefly once, when she was younger. He had been fascinated by her healing abilities. He had asked Orochimaru if the snake had any others besides herself, and if he was willing to part with them. Orochimaru had apologized in his sneering way that contradicted any sincerity that might have been in his tone and told the red-haired puppet master that she was one of a kind. Afterwards, he had allowed his one time partner to practice a few of his techniques on her as way of making it up to him, and as a way to see just how durable she was.

She had been 5 years old at the time.

At the time, she still had a small connection to her emotions and had felt the loathing she had for the man that had been instrumental in her creation deepened to its most dark. That had been the last emotion that she had ever felt.

She had felt no anger towards the man causing the pain and anguish in her small form for she could see that he gained no pleasure from it. It was merely a study to see if she could survive. If there was any that she ever felt something akin to respect, it would have been the red-haired puppet, Sasori. He had trained most of what she was in the taijutsu department. He had been the one to teach her how to mend her clothing with her own hair. He had not cared in the slightest for her personally, but he had seen a puppet, albeit one that breathed, and had thought that she should at least be in the best condition.

As any work of art should, he had often told her. Art was eternal and should be treated with respect.

She had taken her queue from him from then on. She emulated what he was and grafted his personality into her own. Her clothing was made of the finest silk, and it covered every part of her skin as it possibly could. She was art, and she would behave as full of life as any silent work.

She wondered who had become the emotionally dead man's new partner when Orochimaru has left the organization. The thought did not stay active in her mind for long. It didn't matter, nothing really did. Life would roll onward no matter what had happened to the puppet. She had rarely seen him as a human even before he had destroyed most of his flesh in his pursuit of perfection; he had always seemed more like the puppets he controlled than anything else.

He had been the only one to ever cause her injury that had last more than a few short moments. The only one to ever defeat her in a battle.

She wondered if there was any way for her to get away from her current location as a guard for the compound the Uchiha resided within.

Her thoughts were brought back to into focus as she noted the pale youth following her 'master'. She sprung into action, appearing behind the dark-haired young man while pressing a kunai firmly to his throat at the pulse point. He froze and she could smell the ink coming from him. He was an artist…

Like Sasori-danna.

This information meant nothing to her. She merely catalogued it away in her mind.

The Snake smiled, if you could call it that, "Ah, I see you've met our new guest." He gestured towards the silent youth she held at blade-point, "This is Sai, he will be joining us."

His gaze flickered towards an Oto Shinobi a few meters away who was drilling a few of chunin. Said man jumped to attention and rattled off a few orders towards those in his command to take over her shift. Once that was done, the gold eyes returned towards looking into the deadened eyes of his creation. He smirked before indicating that she should release the Konoha-nin.

"Join us, would you, my pet?"

She slipped the kunai back into her holster and trailed behind the three men soundlessly. Every once and a while, the artist's eyes would flick in her direction so quickly that the only one to notice was the young woman under scrutiny.

She recognized him for what he was from the glitter in his eyes and the falsity of his smile.

He was like her, only his art was transferred off of himself and onto another medium.

He was slightly different though, his eyes reminded her of how the Uchiha' s had been before the cursed seal had dissolved, only more empty, more like hers.

Though not as dead.

**A/N:** Well here it is, the next update thingy...I was worried about how to write the part where my story meets up with canon again, but when I sat down it just kinda..flowed...then I couldn't go to bed until I finished it...which kinda sucked cause it was already really late...but it was worth it...


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Sasuke had given up on counting the days since his confinement. Time didn't mean very much when you couldn't even tell whether it was day or night. Meals arrived regularly, but other than that, there was no real way to tell what time of day it was. The meals themselves were all very plain, although highly nutritious so as not to cause any damage to the snake's 'new body'.

He sighed for what seemed the millionth time and wondered at his own self. Just what, exactly, had he been thinking? His mind couldn't seem to organize itself. One moment he was angry with himself for leaving Konohagakure and trying to kill his best friend, and another, he was wondering just what had possessed him to throw away this seemingly golden opportunity to gain more power to not only kill his brother but quite possibly to be able to protect any future that he might have.

Not that he currently had anyone to share anything with, although if he could get his teammates to talk to him again… No, ex-teammates, they were his _ex_-teammates. He didn't care what they thought or what they did. Yet he was still worried about the dobe and the annoying pink thing. He was worried that they would do something stupid, like continuing to chase after him, and get themselves killed. He was worried about how his betrayal had affected his mentor and sensei, Kakashi. The silver haired man may not have been the most reliable of teachers, but he had always done well by the raven haired youth.

The raven shook his head yet again and tried to direct his thoughts instead of letting them wander down any path they seemingly chose at a moment's notice. He couldn't decide how to feel about anything much less think. His emotions, as his thoughts, seemed to jump from one extreme to another without meeting in the middle and it frustrated him to no end.

He was almost 16 years old for goodness sake! He should have some kind of grasp on his own emotions by now! He had lived on his own since he was 8 years old, had to look after his own affairs. He should be able to make up his mind between whether he wanted to feel joy at the opportunity that Orochimaru had given him or to feel remorse at his own actions in leaving the place of his birth.

If he stayed here, with the snake, and allowed himself to become the old man's new body, there was a price to pay, but he would get some benefit out of the bargain. He knew that the old snake would, eventually, kill his older brother, he would be obliged to do so, if only out of a sense of preservation for his own skin. Sasuke also knew that his clan would be revived. Orochimaru wouldn't be able to stay in his body forever; he would be able to stay in the body for three years at the very least before rejection would set in. Orochimaru would have to wait until Sasuke was at least 18 years old before he tried to take the Uchiha's body as his own in order to insure that Sasuke had any offspring at all so as to have more sharingan wielding bodies to some day possess.

Not that the snake would take possession, in the literal sense, of every single offspring he produced, it wouldn't be necessary. They had discovered that a body that held a kekkei genkai could withstand the rejection of the foreign soul for a lot longer than a body that didn't hold such a talent. The Sannin would allow his clan to flourish as much as possible, as a part of Otogakure.

The Snake Sannin would make sure that the Uchiha Clan, once a proud part of Konohagakure, would be integrated into his own shinobi village as seamlessly as possible. After all, Otogakure was looked at as an extension of the serpent-like man. It was just another part of his insane bid for immortality. As long as Otogakure flourished, so would he; at least, that's what the snake believed. If the Sound failed, then he would as well, and vice versa.

Sasuke's thoughts, once again, strayed from their course of evaluating his own life as he thought more on the village that he had seemingly joined.

Otogakure wasn't quite like Konohagakure has been. The people there had once been outcasts from other villages, shinobi or not. Not everyone living within the village was a shinobi or even capable of becoming one. There were farmers, weavers, and every other kind of worker imaginable for a village to prosper, even a small village like Otogakure.

The Village Hidden in the Sound wasn't anywhere near the size of Konohagakure or even the size of Sunagakure, but it would be, some day. The people here were like people any where. They lived, they died, they laughed, they cried. They grew angry at one another and teased each other about trivial things. They weren't the dark, evil people that many in Konoha had thought of when they first discovered that Otogakure was founded and led by the Leaf's rogue Sannin.

In a way, he could see Otogakure as a type of offshoot of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. They even had similar philosophies. Konohagakure's main lesson was that each member of the village was just as important as the topmost official or shinobi. That each person was important in their own right and should never be abandoned. Otogakure's lesson was that each person should be treated as special, that each could be useful in their own way if so allowed. That, though each were different, that they still had the same potential to become something more.

In a way, each village was as much a hypocrite as the other as well. In Konohagakure, people were treated differently depending on their clan titles. He could understand a certain amount of respect being given to those who had a kekkei genkai of some sort or had contributed greatly to the village one way or another, earned respect, but he didn't see how it should be allowed to be taken advantage of as much as it had been. He had hated how people tried to pander to his every whim, trying to gain favor with the 'last of the prestigious Uchiha Clan'. It sickened him how the people had tried to sell themselves, especially some of the women, just for a chance to be associated with him.

It was one of the reasons that he had been so stand-offish with others, his own age or not. He couldn't trust that they hadn't been sent by their own parents to curry favor with him.

Many would say that he shouldn't be that suspicious of anything, but he had remembered what people had been like towards his brother. He had seen how disgusted his brother had bee towards those types of people, and he had felt the same way.

After all, a part of the reason he still hated his elder brother with such a passion was because he still, deep down in his subconscious, wanted to be just like his nii-san.

**----------Scene Change----------**

She didn't make eye contact with anyone in the group; too busy scanning the area around them.

It would not do to be taken by surprise even in their own base of operations.

They were not in Otogakure; had not been since the Sannin's apprentice had tried to escape. Orochimaru thought that it was too risky to be in one place too long. They had stayed in Otogakure long enough for the sedatives placed in the young Uchiha's food to saturate his system long enough for him to remain unconscious for a little over 36 hours. That had taken a little over two weeks to accomplish.

They were now located in one of the Snake's many compounds scattered throughout the Elemental Countries. She knew which one they were at, and she knew which one they would move too in a few days. She didn't particularly care which one they went to, she knew them all, had been to them all. She was created in one of them, not in Otogakure like many believed.

Just because she was spoken of as the _Oto_ no Youkai did not mean that she originated from there.

Of course, most of the population currently residing within the village walls didn't originate from the small, but flourishing ninja settlement. Many were refugees of one kind or another; people looking for a place to stay and a new start. They looked to their leader, their Otokage to protect them from those that would harm them for simply existing.

She briefly wondered if they knew what the Snake was really like.

Orochimaru was very careful to project a sense of the caring uncle towards 'his' people. He made sure no one starved, that everyone had a roof over their heads. That everyone had work that they could enjoy, that they would receive medical care when needed. Counseling for those with problems wishing to recover from them and make restitution for the wrongs they had made in their lives.

He was the perfect leader for his people.

There seemed to be no crime on the streets of Otogakure.

People who were discontented with the lifestyle would leave, presumably of their own free will. Though this did not happen often, for a multitude of reasons.

First and foremost, many didn't have another place to go, so if they found something about life as a citizen of the ninja village they would, more likely than not, grit their teeth and bare with it. Secondly, if they didn't bare with it and tried to cause trouble, they would be arrested and taken to gaol. Some would change their ways and return to life amongst the populace.

Others were not so lucky.

No one amongst the civilians living in the ninja village really knew about that part. They were just told that the discontented were taken to a new place to stay, one where they would still be safe from those out to kill them for whatever reason, and that they would have several chances to change how they acted.

Of course there were still rumors, but no one really paid them any mind, or at least, not for long if they did try to look in on things too closely.

Otogakure was not a place for those who questioned their leader, but it was a place of refuge and a new start, so many didn't want to question where the hand that fed them came from or what it did when it wasn't seeing to their needs. You took everything at face value and tried not to question or look too closely. It was, after all, a village of ninja, extremely paranoid ninja, who were taught to do whatever their 'savior' told them to do. To do otherwise was to risk being exiled back into the world that had already turned against them. Many followed the village policies out of genuine gratitude, while others just wanted to save what they had left of their lives.

Her expression didn't change as she was dismissed. The Snake wanted her to escort their new ally to his quarters. She said nothing as she indicated a direction that the painter should follow her towards. The pale youth made no attempt to start a meaningless conversation.

They walked silently through the halls of the compound, the only sound to follow them was the almost nonexistent footfalls of the dark-haired artist.

**A/N:** sorry for the wait any loyal readers I may actually have!...if it makes you feel any better, I've already started on chapter 12!...(sighs)...it might be a while before it's anywhere near done, though, school started two weeks ago, and I have a lot of reading homework...


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Sai fingered through his bingo book slowly until he reached the page regarding the defective Uchiha.

He noted the similarities in their physical appearance and absently noted in the back of his mind that this was probably more the reason that his superior had chosen him for this post rather than any other factor. Danzou-sama carried a quiet grudge against the Kyuubi-vessel. He never disclosed his reasons to any of the ROOT shinobi, though many believed that it was simply because the orange clad young man carried the demon within his stomach. Others thought differently, mostly the elder members, though they never hinted at why they disagreed with such a popular theory.

Sai didn't really care what the reason for the age old grudge was. He had been taught to never allow his personal emotions to have any say on his decisions. He felt some amount of mixed curiosity and disdain for his superior for allowing such things to dictate how he reacted to certain things. Though he didn't allow such things to stay in his mind for very long.

Sai had learned to block his emotions almost completely. He rarely felt any of them now and often wondered at others who allowed such a dangerous thing to control them.

It was one of the reasons he had become intrigued with not only his current target, but with the team he had been placed with. He didn't understand why they did many of the things they did, and what was left of the child within him wondered about those actions now and then. Though the timing of such things was sporadic at best and nonexistent at worst.

He read through the entry concerning the younger Uchiha before slowly closing the book and placing it into his pocket. He turned towards the door on his right and stepped towards it, turning the knob silently and stepping out into the underground hallway.

He had work to do.

-**Scene Change**-

She was silent as she watched from the shadows.

It was her shift to guard the entrance to what could only be called a lair. Her gaze swept over the area in front of her as she breathed silently. Her body movements were as controlled as everything about her. Rigidly, though smooth enough so as not to catch anyone's immediate attention, unless it was necessary for their eyes to be on her.

She blinked.

A shadow moved across the ground in front of her, slowly, away from the compound.

Her posture didn't change, though her eyes tracked the figure carefully. The shadows covered the identity of the deserter quite well. Her eyes narrowed to slits momentarily before widening to take in all of the light available in an attempt to construct the picture before her. She set out after the silent shadow when it began to recede from her line of vision.

She wasn't certain of who the figure racing before her was. Her gate was as silent as the one before her, if not more so. Her movements slowed as the figure's frantic pace came to an abrupt halt. She was not surprised to discover that it was the artist from earlier that she had been following, but then, she was rarely surprised by anything. That took more emotion than she was mentally capable of.

They were far enough from the snake's lair that there were no scouts keeping watch other than her. She was the ultimate defense for the Snake; if an enemy came at them in the night, she would protect wherever the Sannin was currently residing. He trusted in her abilities to safeguard him, though not in her own decisions to do so.

She listened quietly as the artist—

_Sai._

-and his fellow shinobi spoke to each other in harsh whispers.

Well, the raven-haired artist spoke quietly, calmly. The blonde and—

She blinked.

Was that _pink_ hair?

She hadn't seen a color quite like that since-

"_Imouto-chan! You need to stay here with-"_

Her eyes narrowed as her mind calmly carried the wisp of a thought away from her conscious mind and into the dark recesses that she never visited. There were no emotions or thoughts attached to the fragment of a conversation long gone.

There was another ninja in the huddle. He reminded her of someone she had known when she was younger; a failed experiment that had lived only a few months before succumbing to the inevitable and decaying. She had been in her shinobi training by then and had witnessed it's execution so that some part of the test could be salvaged. It had been where she had learned much of her anatomy lessons.

His eyes were a dark brown that seemed to be paying strict attention to the argument going on between the teens before him, but she could feel him scouting out the area around them with his senses. He hadn't noticed her yet, though that was more because she used chakra a lot less than most shinobi. She didn't leave a viable chakra signature that was distinguishable from the wildlife around them.

Her head tilted to the side as she caught sight of the blonde's unusual eyes. Slit pupils were surrounded completely with the most startling blue that she had ever seen.

This must be the jinchuuriki that had troubled the Snake for so long through his continuing influence on what he perceived as _his_. The Uchiha that the Snake Sannin so wished to possess.

_Uzumaki Naruto_.

She was silent as she kept her eyes on the group. They flickered away from the arguing blonde, pinkette and Sai towards the elder of the group for a moment. She distantly recognized him as one of the Snake's completed experiments that she had learned about at some point. The only child in a group of 60 babies that had survived forced DNA implantation of the Shodaime Hokage. She was aware, on a visceral level, that forced implantation of DNA onto an already existing and complete DNA strand was risky at best and completely pointless at worse. The many failed attempts with previous strands had been one of the main reason the Snake had only tried implanting her DNA once when she was younger, before she had finished maturing, in an attempt to speed up the process of creating more like her. It hadn't worked, of course, and the failed attempts had also been added to her lessons. Whether any other attempts in DNA implantation had been attempted with other DNA strands had been done, successfully or otherwise, she wasn't sure. Any failures or successes had not been added to her lessons nor discussed around her.

She was silent as the team entered Orochimaru's mostly underground base. Her orders were conflicting at the moment, and she would take advantage of that as much as she could. She was aware that the Uchiha wasn't allowed any outside contact save for Kabuta, any of his assistants and Orochimaru himself. As far as she knew, no others were allowed contact with him, not even if the base were being attacked. He was to remain isolated until the Snake had decided what he would do with the young man. The Uchiha's food was heavily drugged, but the breeding of the various Shinobi Clans was telling as he was gradually becoming immune to those that would allow him to be sedated for any length of time. The amount that it had taken to get him sufficiently drugged in order to move him that first and last time was no longer enough. It had barely been enough to move him in the first place, and Orochimaru hadn't been able to get any reproductive material in which to conduct his experiments on. He did have some material, but he always needed more.

As far as she knew, Orochimaru hadn't been able to gather _any_ reproductive material for most of the time the Uchiha had been under his power. From what little she'd been able to gather through overheard conversations and what she'd learned during the few times she'd been sent to subdue Juugo, it was almost virtually impossible to force someone under the influence of the curse seal to voluntarily produce the reproductive material Orochimaru required. The body simply wasn't able to gather the energy necessary for the angry strength of the seal as well as the energy needed for reproduction at the same time whilst under the seal's power. Something about how the seal interfered with certain hormones. One of the side effects of the jutsu that had removed the curse seal from the Uchiha had been the negation of this problem. One of the reasons she'd been ordered to train the boy in its use at the time.

Unfortunately for the Snake, that hadn't gone the way he wanted it to, and now the boy was refusing to let him have anything that wasn't taken by force. Drugging the boy wasn't working and Orochimaru may be one to break his word whenever he felt like it, but he had held at least some of his bargain with the boy. The Uchiha was stronger than most of his forces, which proved to be a problem when none of them were particularly interested in following orders and getting the boy to donate any of the material the Snake required. The Uchiha was too unpredictable at the moment. The removal of the curse seal was wreaking havoc on the boys endocrine system, his hormones and sensory nerves firing and misfiring, causing mood swings that weren't controllable for the boy, much less the Snake or any of his followers. The drugs being introduced at different intervals into his system certainly weren't helping matters either. She hadn't been ordered to assist those attempting to retrieve any genetic material. The Snake was well aware that this was one order she was able to withstand in regards to herself. She had never been ordered to retrieve such material from others, and the small part of her that was aware of who she was hoped that she never had to try her will against the Snake's on this matter again.

It was difficult enough to withstand him on the order regarding her own reproduction as it was.

As long as she stopped the group from entering the Uchiha's specific set of rooms, those orders weren't in any way violated.

As for the orders in keeping enemies out of the compound… Orochimaru himself had ordered her to allow the artist, Sai free movement within the basics of the compound, including entry and exiting. She wasn't violating any of those orders as long as the young man didn't enter any of the areas deemed off limits.

The Konoha shinobi were another matter. The girl and the experiment were the only real variables in this equation as there were standing orders to avoid any and all contact with the blonde jinchuuriki. The reasons behind that order were varied, but unknown to her. She could hazard a guess at them, if she cared enough to, which she didn't. Her orders were mainly because it was almost certain that he was stronger than her. Orochimaru didn't want one of his prized possessions to be destroyed after all the work he'd put into her. He still had so much he wanted from her, so much that she would never allow to happen.

If she thought about it in any way, the two variables were able to slip through the orders regarding the jinchuuriki as well as the artist. They were with one who had access to the compound and with another whom she wasn't allowed within fatal distance of. The fact that she was so close to the blonde was already close to breaching her orders as it was. If the Snake had thought that the shinobi of Konoha would be able to get this close to one of his more important compounds, he hadn't shared it with her, nor thought to change any of her standing orders. This might prove disastrous for him if things played out correctly for his enemies. This was all assuming that the Snake hadn't already thought of the artist's betrayal in this way and planned for it. It was also possible that the artist was planning on leading his former comrades into a trap, thus gifting them to the Snake in a show of good will.

It wasn't her place to know such plans. It was her place to know her orders and to follow them to the best of her ability, which was considerable.

She followed them as they entered the compound, being careful as they were to not attract any attention. Just because she wasn't there, watching, didn't mean that others weren't there to pick up any slack she might have left behind, which she hadn't as she had indicated that she was looking into something to the other guards on duty. They wouldn't know she'd reappeared or that she had seen any others as far as her current orders allowed.

-**Scene Change**—

Sasuke was silent as he stared at the door. He was having difficulty concentrating on any one thing other than the door.

Doors were usually used to symbolize beginnings when open or endings when closed. It was a popular saying, normally in the West, that whenever a door closed a window would open. Signifying that every end could spawn a beginning in some way as long as it was looked for. Nothing was ever a true dead end in that way, as even a dead end had an up and down that could be used to create a doorway.

He blinked for a moment.

Moments in time were what you made of them; they could be life-altering or have no significance as the only way they could gain significance was if the one partaking in them decided it would be so. That person wasn't always willing to admit that the moment they'd just been in was worth attributing whatever breakthrough they'd had. Often times, such decisions were made on a subconscious level that wasn't truly controlled as the mental links and decisions that would spring from them had been trained and set in place from childhood on.

His eyes slid away from the door towards the food in front of him, waiting for him to consume it. It was bland, simple, but nutritious and was certain to keep him healthy as long as he continued to eat it. He knew there were drugs in the food, knew it with each bite he'd had over the time he'd been confined to his rooms. Knew as well that such things needed to be varied or they wouldn't work for very long. He didn't want to continue eating the drug-laced food. It wasn't appetizing to him and he could no longer decide what he wanted to do about it.

He felt as bland as the food tasted. His mind kept turning over everything that he'd ever recorded with his spinning eyes. The Sharingan was good like that, it helped you to memorize whatever you were looking at while it was activated, so it was perfect for recording information you wanted to remember forever. It was just deciding what you wanted to remember that was the problem. It was also added to how disassociated he felt about things.

On the one hand, his first, perfectly clear memory thanks to his eyes was sacrificing himself and all his dreams, ambitions, goals for the sake of a boy that he barely knew anything about, yet felt such a kinship for. Something he hadn't thought he'd be able to feel once his brother had destroyed his childhood. That feeling, that memory, of looking up into anguished, confused blue eyes and urging that person to keep living, to keep going forward…

It wasn't something that would have been easily forgotten even without the spinning wheel in his eyes burning every nuance of that moment into his mind.

On the other hand, the battle at the Valley of the End etched just as clearly in his mind. The feel of that same person's heart right before it was pulverized by his fist wasn't something that could be shrugged off. The pummels given and returned and the final moment when looking down and knowing, _knowing_ that the other was completely used up and his very existence was balanced completely in his own hands. Looking down, one last time, at someone that would be his enemy from that moment on, just as his own blood brother was his enemy…

The moments in between those two, the building of the trust between them as well as the training from his teacher and working with his team on tasks both great and small. His life was actually starting to mean something more than a blood soaked night and tri-spinning eyes.

The moments after the Valley of the End, learning from the feet of a madman and anyone he was assigned to. Being tested and being found wanting before training again, harder, longer and the tests being passed. Being the best and actually believing it for a short moment before being introduced to someone other than Orochimaru and his one trusted subordinate who wasn't just better than her, but actually _better_ in a way that he couldn't even attribute to a special ability like his own or that of any other bloodline. Better just because she was, but also in a way that was similar to his once-teammate and maybe-almost-like-brother. Except for the fact that she didn't have some strange chakra like he did, instead, she seemed to have little to no chakra at all.

He would drive himself crazy before he ever decided on anything. The only thing he seemed able to decide on was that he didn't like the food and he didn't want to eat it. He pushed the tray away from him, leaving it on the end of the bed as he moved to sit with his back braced against the wall at the head. He looked up at the ceiling as his thoughts continued to circle uncontrolled.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

They ghosted through the halls of the compound, being careful to stay out of sight and, hence, out of mind. The artist led them through the tunnels adroitly, being careful to not alert any of the Oto shinobi. He was self-assured and confident in his abilities. He would see this through, this mission that he had never thought he would have. Most would say that he had given up hope for such a mission, but that wouldn't be the truth. He couldn't give something up if he had never really had it in the first place, now could he?

She followed them, making sure to keep just out of sight, just out of hearing distance. She could hear them, heard them perfectly, though she was certain that others didn't. She kept her breathing even and low whenever the blonde jinchuuriki would pause for half a second or glance back. She knew that he was aware that someone was following them. She wasn't sure why he hadn't backtracked to take care of the problem or why he hadn't done more to alert the others. She supposed that he had already alerted them in a way that she wasn't aware of. Just because she knew almost all of the signs for things didn't mean that she would know every single one. There was only so much that the human mind could store and access, even with the experiments that the Snake had done to enhance her.

He knew she was following them, but didn't consider her a danger to them. She didn't waste time wondering just why that was. She briefly considered which group to follow as they split at a juncture, but in the end, her orders, jumbled though they were, caused her to follow the artist. The jinchuuriki was too unknown in how he would react to her and the artist was taking a turn down a section of the compound that he hadn't been given clearance to.

-**Scene Change**—

Sasuke was annoyed, no, more than annoyed. He was well and truly ticked off. He hated this room, he hated that snake and he hated, hated, hated his brother! He hated everyone and everything that had allowed this to happen to him. His sensei, his teammates, the Hokage, his cousins and aunts and uncles, his parents and especially that woman! Before she had given him that stupid jutsu to practice he had been clear-headed and precise in his expectations and his decisions. He knew what he wanted and how he wanted to get here.

He blinked.

He wasn't even sure where here was. He knew that he was in a bedroom and that there was restroom behind the partition, but he had no window and he never saw anyone. He wondered if his family knew where he was or if anyone did. He often wondered if there was anyone here at all. It had been quite some time since he'd woken in this place. He wondered if it had something to do with all the strange meetings that his parents had been going to lately.

He blinked.

He wondered if he was supposed to be meeting his teammates soon. He scoffed at what the dead last was probably saying. Probably something about how he was better than the last true Uchiha because he was on time or some other such rubbish. Although, the blonde had been getting better in his skills lately, he was actually becoming worthy to be his rival. He didn't like to think that they were anything like friends, though. He was worried about making friends, it wasn't safe, for either party in such an arrangement. He didn't want to become like his brother.

He blinked.

His brother, he was here to kill his brother. He couldn't leave until he had enough power to match him without stooping to the same levels that his brother had. He was going to find his own way. At the moment, his way was with Orochimaru and the trainer that the sannin had appointed him. He wondered where she was; he hadn't seen her in quite some time, had he? He wasn't sure anymore. It was so hard to know things, to know his own mind. He wasn't worrying much about that, though. He didn't have the time to deal with such trifles.

He blinked.

At least he hadn't, before she had tried to teach him some kind of crock-pot trick. He still didn't know what the jutsu was supposed to have done. He hadn't really asked anyone outside of the woman, asking her what she'd done to him. She hadn't answered, and hadn't that just been typical? She had barely spoken to him in all the time they'd trained together. Even Kabuto talked more to him in passing than she did.

He blinked.

Kabuto, that slimy piece of work. He was even creepier than the snake. Always skulking around, though that might be expected of a ninja. The light would reflect off of his glasses, hiding his eyes and his thoughts. His mouth would stretch out in a grin, usually when he was working on something. Sasuke had seen more than one corpse be set aside by the medic when he'd been sent to fetch him in his first weeks with Orochimaru. Sometimes he'd wondered just what it was the man was working on, slightly sickened at the looks on the faces. Other times he hadn't even given it a second glance. More of the latter had happened the longer he'd been with Orochimaru.

He blinked.

Orochimaru. He was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't have ignored the man's offer and stayed in Konoha. Did he really know just what kind of man he was? He remembered that his mother had always told him stories of the man, as if he was some kind of bogey monster that would come and get him if he wasn't a good little shinobi son. He wondered just what his mother would say if she learned that he'd thrown away all of their clan's honor to join with a man that would gladly see everything his family had helped to build destroyed. He wondered if his father would be proud of him now, proud at the depths he would go in order to avenge them.

He blinked.

He wondered if avenging was the way to go with his career. He had considered working in the Konoha Military Police after there had been a recruiting seminar at the Academy a few months before the Massacre, but had abandoned it in favor of killing his brother afterwards. He wondered if maybe he should try to rebuild the force, once he had finished avenging his clan of course. He idly wondered who had been covering the force's jurisdiction after the Massacre.

A small part of his mind mulled over how it had been affecting Konoha's shinobi forces. That part of his mind moved to the back and ceased thinking.

He blinked.

Uchiha Sasuke had once been many things. He had, had hopes and dreams and ambitions. He had, had emotions and thoughts and ideas. He had prided himself on his control above all else, such a thing had been highly valued by his clan. Now, now Uchiha Sasuke was at the mercy of every thought that would randomly speed across his mind. All of his vaunted control meant nothing now.

Sometimes that little part in the back of his mind wondered if it ever really had.

-**Scene Change**—

It hadn't been epic; it hadn't been anything, really. At least, nothing that they had done.

There had been an explosion, a great blast, some experiment had gone wrong and everything had fallen tail up. They didn't really care, they had taken the opportunity that had been presented to them, grabbed what they could, and high-tailed it out of there. They had been lucky, lucky that everyone had been trying to figure out what had happened or had been blown away in the blast.

Sai had found Sasuke and, after making sure he was well and truly knocked out, bound him with seals that would prevent him from using his chakra. He had made note that the Uchiha no longer bore the curse seal trussing him up and carrying him out. He had met up with the others and followed them out of the compound. They had picked up some information from within the compound, though they hadn't disclosed to him just what it was, and he hadn't asked. He had just joined up with them on the way out.

They had hardly stopped to eat or rest, catching moments of sleep when they could and eating ration bars. They had, had to re-knock out their captive twice before they reached the village gates. Sai had sprinted ahead for a few minutes to take care of their check-in, allowing the rest of the party to race ahead to the holding cells. They didn't want to risk Sasuke waking up and getting away in the village. They weren't sure what he was like anymore and they didn't want to risk anything more than they already were by bringing him back alive.

Their emotions were too coiled up to let them feel relief even after they had secured their former teammate and friend in a cell that would protect both him and the village. Him from those that would seek revenge and those that he might harm as well. There were only a select few that would be able to open the cell by using their chakra or, in one case, lack of chakra. Those who could open it were those that were powerful enough to fulfill both obligations. They were pushing it as it was. Many of the council, they were sure, would be outraged to learn that the Uchiha was still alive and able to regain consciousness.

Most of his team wouldn't be able to open the cell as a safety precaution. While that grated at both Sakura and Naruto, they understood the reasoning behind it. Being those closest to him, even more so than their teacher, and them being so young… No one could really be certain just what Sasuke would have learned from Orochimaru. The Snake Sannin had been able to convince his former sensei, the Sandaime Hokage, to let him go even when there was hard proof in front of the man of his treacheries against the village. Sakura's former crush, though juvenile in every sense of the word and long since dealt away with, was coming back to bite her more harshly then she had ever thought it might. Naruto, being the village's jinchuuriki and almost the complete village's pariah didn't exactly help in his case. It being known publicly that he considered the youngest surviving Uchiha to be his brother certainly hadn't endeared him as trustworthy to most of the council either.

While the younger generation of shinobi was almost completely graduated to the chunin level, many of them still allowed their personal lives to influence their reasoning. Something that wasn't uncommon in a village with the kind of vaunted work ethic that Konohagakure had, especially during peacetimes. The hostilities between Otogakure and Konohagakure hadn't quite reached the point of being all out war, not even by shinobi standards. The failed invasion was just that, a failed attempt at taking out one of the older shinobi villages by the newest village. No declaration of war had been issued and no covert war-like attempts had happened either. Konohagakure had been preparing for war as well as they could without alerting their civilian population, but there was only so much they could do with their younger shinobi without actually living in a war environment.

The precautions on all of their high security prisoners, though there weren't many, were one of the new measures that they had started to employ. Not even all of the council was aware of some of the newer policies in action that the Hokage and her chosen advisors had enacted over the last four years. The current Hokage's advisors, her own personal advisors that she had picked to meet with outside of the official council, weren't even known to exist. As far as anyone was concerned, the same advisors that had existed for the Sandaime, his former teammates, were now his successor's advisors as well.

Team Kakashi met with the Godaime five minutes after they had successfully deposited their living burden in his cell to report and hand over the other part of their mission in person. There would be written reports filled out and filed later that day or the following morning. Though he wasn't in the party that was headed towards the Hokage's office, even the famously late Hatake Kakashi wouldn't turn in his written reports late anymore, well, not officially at least. He did have a reputation to uphold.

The party of four waited patiently in the waiting room just outside of the office when they learned that another team was already meeting with the Hokage. They took this chance to breath, eat, drink and even to catch up a bit on their sleep. One thing that never changed no matter whether it was war-time or not, you took what down time you could and didn't complain about it. Naruto finished off his ration bar and the last of his current canteen's water supply, stowed the now empty cases back in one of his side pouches and stretched his arms above his head before settling into a familiar position of arms folded behind his head as he eyes his teammates. Sakura was stowing away her own half-eaten food and settling herself on a nearby bench to rest and finish catching her breath at the same time. Their team leader, the man with the same abilities as the Shodaime, as well as the really freaky personality, seemed to be meditating or something like that. It was the fourth member that really drew his attention.

Sai, who had seemingly betrayed them. Who had supposedly been sent on an assassination mission from a secret organization within their village. Who had also seemingly turned his back on said mission and said secret organization all because of him, Uzumaki Naruto. How was it that he seemed to have this affect on people? He had met hundreds of people, interacted with those in his own village who spent the first half of his life ignoring his very existence and yet all these people who he had only spent a day, an hour or even a few minutes with would change their whole life's philosophy.

Why was he so different?

He hadn't really thought that he was anything special growing up. Sure, he hadn't had any family members and he had been on a first name basis with the 'head man' of the whole village. He had lived alone with seemingly random people checking up on him now and then for the first few years. As he stood now, his only father figure also doubled as his favorite former academy sensei. His sister figure could create a 5 X 5 meter trench with one fist. He older brother figure was an Avenger. He didn't really think there was much more to add to that. His 'extra' family members comprised of the new Hokage, his jounin sensei and an amalgamation of others who weren't necessarily members of his village.

The ramen stand people deserved classifications of their own as far as he was concerned; after all, they had introduced him to the Wonder that was Ramen.

Considering some of the other shinobi he had met and learned about, he was downright average even when taking into account being a jinchuuriki.

So why had Sai decided to change? Naruto shook his head and then frowned for a moment as another thought crossed his mind. If he could help all these people, people who he hardly interacted with, then why he hadn't he been able to help Sasuke, his closest friend? He tried to think back on all their interactions from before the other had defected, but couldn't bring everything to mind. He wasn't one who really thought things through after all. He let out a sigh and dismissed it from his mind when the door opened and the team who had been there before them left, signaling that it was their turn.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14:**

Her face was smooth as she stood before her creator. He snarled at her and paced back and forth, his men standing at terrified attention. They had let intruders into the compound, rustle around for who knew what as well as walk out with the same who knew what. Not to mention allowing his next chosen vessel to be taken, whether it was by the same persons or someone else. A few of the guards had been killed in the line of duty and their new liaison had either been taken as well, unlikely, or had really been just a plant.

This was his best compound outside of Otogakure itself and should have had the best security as well. In some ways, it should have had better security, but that wasn't the case anymore, was it? Files and rooms had been damaged and stolen. His eye ticked as he looked once more at one of his greatest creations. She simply stood there, seemingly unbothered by his rage. His lip turned up at her expression and he stalked over to her, flicking out his wrist in a slap across her face. Her head turned sharply to the side, but otherwise, she remained stationary. She kept her head in that position, awaiting the inevitable command to look the Snake in the eyes.

It never came.

-**Scene Change**—

She observed the sleeping teen safely from behind the barred plexi-glass window in his cell door. She hadn't started his entry physical just yet as she was awaiting one of her advisors who would be acting doubly as one of her bodyguards. She continued to watch as he slept deeply and glanced away for a moment to make eye contact with the guard waiting at the door. He shook his head minutely at her silent question and she returned her gaze to the cell. So, he wasn't under some kind of jutsu and had been sleeping like this since he'd been placed here by his former teammates.

She wondered if it was some kind of effect from whatever it was he'd been up to with her own former teammate. Or maybe there had been some damage done from being knocked out twice, once by the explosion at the compound and again when he'd been knocked out on the way back to Konohagakure. Either way, she'd find out soon enough.

There was a minute difference in the air around her and she didn't even have to look back in order to know that her bodyguards and advisor were finally there. Not that she'd been waiting long, but it was always nice to get things done as soon as possible. Left her more time to do whatever she wanted with her time. Usually gambling and drinking, though she'd been trying to privately cut back on those things. Not always succeeding, but when you'd spent a good third of your life using something as a crutch, it made it that much more difficult to let them go. It probably didn't help that, publically at least she couldn't appear to have changed her habits too much.

She nodded her head at the guard to open the cell door and refrained from massaging her head for a moment. Preparing for a war that they weren't even 100 percent certain was going to come was taxing. Then again, being any kind of 'responsible' figure was taxing. She didn't waste time missing her carefree days where all she had to worry about were the day-long hangovers and debt collectors. No, she saved those times for when she would stare at the piles of paperwork on her desk.

The door closed and locked behind her bodyguards and the teen on the pallet stirred ever so slightly before one black eye peered up at her. He moved to a sitting position, but didn't say anything, merely sat there and allowed her to begin her exam. She said nothing, merely used her hands to nudge him this way and that. She didn't ask any questions, his questioning would start at a different time and in a different place. She makes sure to mark down everything that she notices and doesn't really stop to take anything in beyond the initial assessment until she reaches his neck. She had purposely left checking the seal on his neck for last, just in case he put up a fuss about it. She had wanted to make sure she got all the other information in the quite likely event that they had to subdue him and continue the exam in a more heavily guarded facility.

You never could be too careful with anything that had her old teammate's finger prints on it, whether that thing was a person or not.

He twitches as her fingers reach for his neck, even though she isn't using any of her diagnostic chakra just yet. He doesn't stop her from pulling the neck of his shirt back, but he tenses after his twitch. His lips press together in a line and his eyes bore into the wall on the opposite side of his room. She is more than surprised to note that the seal that had been confirmed by several very trustworthy sources _isn't_ on the young man in front of her. There aren't any signs that it had ever been on him.

-**Scene Change**—

She didn't wonder at why she had been able to disobey orders, didn't even put any thought power towards finding out the answers. They wouldn't do her any good at this point anyway; she knew this from the marrow of her bones out to the cloth of her clothing that she sewed together with her own hair. Orders were orders, but when you had too many orders it was easy, so easy, to find a small loophole. She had known this bit of logic for years, but she also knew that it would do her little to no good to use every little loophole that she found. If she did, it would become apparent that such things existed to the thing that was her creator. So she would pick and choose her battles, knowing that she could be passing up the real opportunity for freedom, but not knowing which it would be.

War was coming, had been coming since long before she had even been an idea in her creator's head. War was the way of life for any and all people within the Elemental Nations that they lived in now. War meant different things to different people and she didn't usually care to think just what it would mean to the people she had never meant, but she did know what it meant to her creator. It meant more and more chances for victory against those that he believed had wronged him. Again, she doesn't bother thinking about whether he's right or not.

She doesn't really have an opinion of whether something is right or wrong. She only thinks of one thing and one thing only on a daily basis. Her own freedom and how she might be able to gain it.

She knows that war is coming, a war that will be different from the wars before it. Different because it will use battlefields that are much more visible than they have been in the past. Shinobi have gotten flashier in the more recent years. They prefer being seen and acknowledged for their deeds rather than leaving things to be whispered about in corners and dreamt about in nightmares that have no name. Reputations are more important in these days than simply having fear of the unknown. People want to know what it is they fear rather than using their own imaginations.

When she was a small child, she had learned this one truth. That all life is an illusion because people want it to be proven and if it isn't proven, then it can't be real. She knows that pain is real, that death is both real and unreal. It is real for others, but hasn't been real for her. It hasn't touched her in a way that has profoundly affected her. She sometimes wished that it would, just so she would know, really know what it is that others know.

Fear of the unknown and fear of the known.

She wonders which is more powerful and which would be able to help her the most.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15:**

They weren't sure just how it had happened. He had left Konohagakure with the Heaven Seal on his shoulder. They hadn't known very much about it, just what they had been able to learn from Anko and from the studies done on her. There hadn't been very many, not like there might have been on the Uchiha for the simple reason that Anko hadn't embraced the power that had settled into her shoulder. She hadn't had the trust in her former mentor, not after he had left her for dead with a shattered mind that had taken years to cobble together into any sense of use. There are still days when she is kept locked in her apartment with ANBU posted just in case she tries to hurt herself or others. Those days have diminished almost to the point where they only happen once or twice a year. They used to happen several times a month.

The Uchiha doesn't have the Heaven Seal anymore, and they don't like how it turns out when they ask him about it.

"When was the seal removed? How did it happen?"

He blinks at them for several long moments, his face not quite impassive enough to cover the racing of his thoughts. He doesn't look worried or nervous or even afraid. No, he looks like he's thinking through everything all at once. Though what that 'everything' is, they're not so sure. When he finally answers, they're not entirely sure what to make of it.

"I was training, training, I'm always training, I have to train. If I don't train then Father won't be proud of my like he is of Itachi. If I train enough, then Itachi will see that I'm strong enough to train with him. He promised that he would work with me on my kunai throwing. Throwing, throwing, I have to remember to throw the milk out; I wasn't able to finish it. I don't know why I bought it, I don't much care for milk, it always reminds me of the moon. The moon, moon, moon. The moon was shining that night, the night it all happened. But did it really happen? Maybe it was all just a dream, a nightmare. Why did I have to believe him that it would work? It never works. I wonder how much more work I have before I will be ready to train with aniki…"

He would ramble on and on and on. Sometimes it was like he was talking to someone, other times it was obvious that he just wasn't able to filter what was coming out of his mouth. He would talk of his family as if they were still alive, as if he was conversing with his mother or his brother or some of his cousins. He rarely spoke with his father, though he spoke about him often.

He would speak of his teammates, of how he missed them, how they annoyed him, how he hoped that Naruto was able to escape the cage of mirrors, how he wished the stupid dead last would just share what their pink-haired teammate had told him about tree walking. How he was irritated with how Kakashi had the sharingan and no one had told him. He wondered when they would be able to take higher missions.

He would talk about how horrified he was that he had killed his teammate, how he hadn't realized what it felt like to push your hand, your arm through another person's chest.

He wondered if Itachi had felt this way, if his parents had felt this way.

He wondered if he was going crazy whenever he had a moment of clarity in his eyes. These times didn't happen very often. When they did, he would look into the interrogator's eyes with desperation, asking, begging for some relief.

He looked so tired.

Tsunade wondered just what had happened to cause this kind of mental degradation in someone. She wondered if it had been done on purpose or if there had been some kind of accident. You couldn't really discount either possibility when it came to Orochimaru.

Most of all, she was worried about how she was going to tell the Uchiha's former teammates and team leader about the young man's mental problems.

She glanced out the window while one hand fiddled with an empty sake saucer. She wasn't looking forward to the days ahead.

-**Scene Change**—

Naruto was training. Of course he was training. There wasn't very much he did other than to randomly hang out with others that he knew, his own age or not. When he wasn't on missions, he was working on that technique that the Yondaime hadn't finished. He was getting somewhere, but it was slow going. Well, slow going as far as the blonde was concerned. Any who stopped to watch him, even if only for a few minutes, could see that he was making leaps and bounds in a direction that hadn't really been looked into extensively. It had been looked into, but not in the way that Naruto was going about it.

No one else in Konohagakure had the chakra to waste on it trying to work on it as obsessively as Naruto had been working on it.

Several shinobi, those that knew Naruto even a little bit, had wondered just what he was training so obsessively for. They knew that Naruto was someone who had to be motivated in order to work as hard as he was at the moment. The boy was a 'genius of hard work' as Rock Lee had said when they were still genin. Those that knew Naruto better wondered which motivation Naruto was working towards, if it was indeed only one thing motivating him.

Naruto didn't take the time to really worry about those watching him. He had work to do, a technique to finish and strength to gain while he still had the time. He wasn't stupid and, contrary to popular belief, he knew more about history than people would think. He knew that time was short and he knew that something was coming. Something bigger than when the Kyuubi had tried to trample the village.

He just hoped that his preparations would be enough.

-**Scene Change**—

Sakura was working in the hospital, practicing what she did and didn't have perfected, working on making sure that everything was stockpiled in the right places and such. She would be joining her blonde teammate as soon as her shift was over and she'd gotten a few hours of sleep. She knew that she needed to practice healing someone whose chakra didn't necessarily accept hers. There were always those few in the corps that had chakra that didn't work well with a medi-nin's chakra. Naruto had the most toxic by far and he would eventually need healing. She knew that there were only a few that would be able to help him should it become necessary. The Hokage was one of them and her first apprentice, Shizune was the other. A few of the nurses would be able to help him for a few days a week, but wouldn't be able to do anything besides follow-up work on him after any major healings. As his teammate, she needed to be able to handle as much as she could, just in case.

She passed Shizune in the hallway and nodded in her direction. Sakura was grateful to be working with her. She knew more about how to organize the hospital and where everything was stored and taken care of throughout the village. Shizune was also a lot better at getting things set up while misdirecting people into thinking that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Sakura had been under her tutelage about how to do that even in small instances for a little over a year. She hadn't always been as discrete as she needed to be, but she was a lot better than she had ever been before.

She stopped to check in with a few patients and even did an hour or so in pediatrics, the civilian side as well as a few academy students. She sighed as she thought about the upcoming academy exams. The next block would be taking their finals in a few days and she knew that there would be more newly minted genin running around the village. She comforted herself with the thought that Shizune had also had her watching them unobtrusively so that they knew which ones would be applying for training to be medi-nins. The classes on first aid and healing had certainly more than doubled in number since Tsunade had become hokage.

Sakura knew that she would be juggling a new series of classes in her schedule, only this time she would be the teacher rather than just a student.

-**Scene Change**—

Kakashi watched his student power up another rasengan and fought the urge to lift his headband and open his left eye. He was successful, but only just. He watched as his student attempted to push his elemental chakra into the imperfect technique the jounin's sensei had spent three years creating, but had never finished.

He watched as another of the boy's clones 'went Kyuubi' and had to be taken down by a few other clones surrounding it. They 'poof'ed out of existence, sending their combined current knowledge back to the blonde. He watched as Naruto blinked for a moment before adjusting something in the way he was channeling his wind chakra. It didn't work, just like the times before didn't work, but that didn't stop Naruto. If anything, it seemed to spur him on more.

Kakashi traded glances with Yamato before he shunshined away for some dinner for the three of them. He made a mental note to pick something up that could be heated up for dinner and any other snacks as well. He didn't think that his student was going to be heading home for at least another day. He wondered, not for the first time, how he could have missed how dedicated his blonde student was when they were younger. If he had known, had _realized_ then maybe things would have turned out differently.

He shook his head as he walked down the ramen aisle. It didn't matter anymore, did it? If there was one thing that Naruto had taught him, it was that the past only mattered as much as you let it. He wondered just how much longer he had to go in order to really live in the present.

-**Scene Change**—

Sai was silent as he awaited his orders. Danzo-sama was silent as well, thinking over the report that he'd been given. A part of him was annoyed that his operative hadn't followed through with his orders, but another part of him was grateful. It opened up so many possibilities that he hadn't even been aware were open.

He didn't smile, not physically, but his eye crinkled at the corner as he made up his mind on what he was going to order the teen to do. This would make things so much more interesting, and hopefully it would help him to attain his goals. If not, then he had other plans that would help him.

He waited until after the teen had left before allowing a smirk to cross his features. Things were going, if not strictly according to plan, then close enough that he would soon gain what he had spent several decades striving for. Things were coming to a head and he was going to be around much longer than certain people thought he would be to benefit from it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16:**

As with most wars fought by shinobi, the Third Great Shinobi War started with no clear view of who threw the first punch. In the end, it probably wouldn't matter who started it, whoever won it would be declared the victim, if there was a clear victor at the end of the war. It was brutal and bloody, as was expected of the shinobi world, but unlike the past wars, this one had many pitched battles. It seemed as if every village save for Amegakure was involved in the fighting, whether they were allied with the Sound or the Leaf or just taking advantage of the situation. Civilians as well as soldiers were caught in the bloodshed and villages were overrun by all sides of the war.

She stood over the remains of such a village and idly wondered at the bodies left to rot. There weren't too many of them in this particular location as the village itself was burning brightly, a consequence of shinobi using katon jutsus against one another. They hadn't been able to hit each other very well, but at least the fires would burn away at the human remains. This would, hopefully, cut back on the chances of disease becoming an even bigger player in the war. She had no misconceptions about all illnesses being stopped by such measures. More than one village had used biological warfare before, though it was hard to spread such poison without food or water being involved. It was hard to contaminate such sources by now, but not impossible.

She could think of at least one source that her master had poisoned already. She was also aware that the village he was targeting was probably aware of it as well, but that wouldn't stop the snake from trying anyway. He hated Konohagakure no Sato almost as much as he loved himself and his former village was well aware of it. Even if they hadn't figured it out after he'd left the place, they certainly knew of it now after his failed invasion several years ago.

"Good thing that fire's going. Saves us the trouble of having to dispose of anything."

"Yeah, might want to get it burning brighter, actually; don't want anything to be left behind for scavengers to pick up and make use of."

"Shame we don't have the time, nor the orders to go in and see if we might find a few cadavers to bring back to the boss."

She listened as those behind her continued to speak quietly to one another. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone motion towards the burning ruins as if they were really going to go in and retrieve something. Without a word she brought her hands up to her mouth and released a grand fireball, no hand signs and with minimal chakra use. She fed the flames for several long minutes until they soared high enough to cause those behind her to back away from the heat. She didn't have to look at them to know that they were inching further away from her in fear.

Orders were that all bodies be destroyed and they were to return to the base as soon as possible. Orders that couldn't be questioned or delayed with how clearly they had been given.

She turned away from the ruins and, without a glance at those who would be accompanying her, started in the direction of the closest base. Those that followed her didn't complain at the almost punishing pace that she set.

-**Scene Change**—

Tsunade steepled her hands and leaned over her desk. What she wouldn't give for five minutes alone with a sake bottle, but no, now was probably the worst time to get drunk. The only other worst time would be in the middle of a surgery. She had grown up in a war and while she knew that her first and second wars had been bloody and full of deceit and backstabbing amongst the villages and even amongst clans, this war was far more brutal.

"Tsunade-sama?"

She looked up at one of her students who was standing in front of her desk holding out several reports. The student was young, barely a genin, and had begun as someone else's student before the war had really started swinging. She had finished the last of thee genin's class lessons when his instructor had been deployed.

She accepted the reports and dismissed the genin before turning to them. She longed for the days when she could put things off, even if for only an hour. She couldn't do that anymore, there was too much riding on this war. This war was unlike any war she had ever seen or even heard about. The battles weren't all conducted at night and, instead, were often in good weather as well as bad. Jutsus were used and it seemed that most of the ninja on the battlefield were going for large flashy jutsu that would do the most damage as well as being frightening in their visual effects.

"When did we stop being shinobi of the shadows and start being like the samurai that a daimyo would hire for battles?" she asked herself before going through the paperwork in front of her with such efficiency that Shizune would be proud of her.

She sighed as she came to the report on one Uchiha Sasuke. It seemed as if the young man was having difficulty working with his therapist. She hadn't had the time to work much with him before the war had started in earnest and so had, had to shunt him off into one of the lesser known departments of the T & I Division. It was a well-known fact that shinobi had problems that they would need to talk about. That many of their missions were hard an even the 'healthiest' shinobi mind, but that they wouldn't be able to talk with civilian therapists about it due to the sensitive nature of the mission details and the weak stomachs of most civilians.

As part of her reconstructuring of the hospital, both for shinobi as well as civilians, she had gone to the T & I Division and set up a subdivision that would deal with the more traumatic parts of a shinobi's career. She would, of course, do spot checking on patients randomly, just like she did in the regular hospital. One of the Yamanaka's was in charge of that subdivision due to their increased knowledge in psychology with a focus on the psychology of active shinobi. The division wasn't in a lot of use at the moment, due to most shinobi being drafted for more missions and for battles, but before the war had started things had started to look at least slightly better for a few shinobi's mental health. Not the worst ones, such as Mitarashi Anko, that would take a lot more work.

Either way, the Uchiha wasn't being cooperative and was actually demanding to see the Hokage! She grumbled to herself about self-important brats and how they should respect their superiors, but she also noticed the notes on how his attention span was improving. She idly thought about giving in to his request, it would at least give her a valid reason to put off some paperwork for an inspection of her new division. She glanced at the pile of papers that wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been at the beginning of the war, but still wasn't small enough for her to put off.

"It looks like I still have another hour of paperwork, at the very least, before I can escape this blasted desk," she sighed, but continued her work. She did take the time, however, to send a note to Shizune. Even if the Hokage couldn't check in on things, she could and would have someone who she explicitly trusted look into it for her.

-**Scene Change**—

Shizune was just finishing up her shift at the hospital in the shinobi section. She wouldn't have another shift for the next 9 hours as she was already far past overtime. She had planned on going home for a quick bite to eat and maybe a power nap before returning to her office in the hospital.

_Hmm,_ she corrected her plans, _Maybe I should just take that power nap in my office and eat in the hospital café instead. That way, if anyone needs me, I'll be within easy reach._

So decided, she noted her location on the board in the main office before turning towards her personal office. She had started keeping non-perishable, but nutritious food in there after her first three days in her new position as the main manager of the hospital. Her mentor, Tsunade-sama, had her hands full as the Hokage and wasn't able to keep as close an eye on it as she would have liked and so had appointed Shizune in her stead. Shizune was both pleased that her mentor had such faith and trust in her and also wary. After all, who else would know enough about the blonde to know where all her hidden bottles of sake were?

In the end, she decided to accept the promotion and only randomly raided her Hokage's secret stashes of alcohol. She had been doing that less and less lately, though. She just didn't have the time.

Shizune was just waking up from her power nap (she was one of those few people that could get lots of work done with only a few power naps every day for weeks, it still caused her mentor to grumble) when one of her assistants entered carrying some folders. She stretched and thanked the chunin before taking her seat behind the desk and reaching for the folders. She moved through them efficiently and without even thinking about putting them off.

She sighed when she found the note from her mentor on Uchiha Sasuke's folder. It looked like she would be checking up on the boy and his progress. She didn't wonder why this task was delegated to her instead of Tsunade-sama's other student. Even in war there would be rules on how to treat and deal with traitors.

She was just glad that she had been able to get some rest before this was brought to her attention. She placed the ones that she could complete in her 'out' box while placing the others in a drawer. She stood with the Uchiha's folder in one hand and left her office. She might as well get this done as soon as possible.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17:**

Tsunade's meeting with Team Kakashi over their former teammates condition hadn't gone over very well, but considering that he could have been brought back dead, it could have gone a lot worse.

"What do you mean his mind's cracked?"

"However the Seal of Heaven was removed it also caused the boundaries in his mind to become more than just eroded. He does have moments when he's aware of what's going on and what he has done so far, but they still are few and far between."

"Will he ever get better?"

"I'm not sure, it is possible that he will someday be allowed out of the secure location he's in, but it's likely that if he is ever stable enough to be on his own he will then be tried and possibly executed for his betrayal of Konoha."

"WHAT!"

"We didn't bring him back just so he could be killed!"

"There has to be something we can do, Tsunade-baa-chan!"

Tsunade's eye twitched at the reactions and the look on her face was serious enough that both Naruto and Sakura shut up. They didn't exactly calm down, but they at least held their tongues. Tsunade was grateful for small blessings.

"Unless we can find something that indicates he didn't turn missing-nin on his own, he will be forced to face the consequences of his actions. We cannot allow such a high profile shinobi to get nothing more than a slap on the wrist! I will do my best, but despite what he means to you and what you mean to me, I cannot allow such insubordination. You will accept whatever his sentencing is or you will be pulled from active duty and placed in a psych eval room yourselves!"

Naruto and Sakura were silent, but their faces said everything that they were thinking.

"I don't have time for this!" Tsunade yelled, just barely keeping herself from smashing her desk, "We have a war on our hands and I don't have the time nor the energy to be holding your hands on this issue! You want to be shinobi and treated as adults? Then start acting like it!"

She didn't wait for more than the dawning comprehension to register on their faces before barking at them to get out of her office. Everyone needed time to calm down, but they didn't have that time, not anymore.

-**Scene Change**—

Naruto continued his training in between missions and other work around the village. He was angry with what Tsunade-baa-chan had said, but he also knew that she was right. He hated to admit it, but he might have brought his best friend and brother-figure home just in time for his execution. The only hope that Sasuke had was it somehow being proven that he had been controlled against his will into betraying Konohagakure. The odds of that weren't very high, but the odds of him being controlled slightly against his will and then even more so once his mental guard was down…

Well, it would be easier for Sasuke to keep his head and possibly some of his freedoms with an outcome like that. Not that such an outcome would help Sasuke with much else, but it would keep him alive and maybe he'd come around. It wasn't like there weren't other times with other people that had been like that. Naruto practically made his ninja reputation by turning such individuals around. Classic example: Gaara in specifics and the entirety of Sunagakure no Sato in general. Naruto knew that if he was able to spend more time with Sasuke (or get someone else like him to do so) then Sasuke would have a chance at turning his life around, even if he was never trusted on a mission very far from the village or even allowed to keep his shinobi status. Being alive with limitations was better than being dead.

"I'm aware that I shouldn't have yelled at Tsunade-baa-chan-"

"She's the Hokage, she deserves your respect."

"-but how would you have responded if you found out that one of your first family members was going to be executed if he ever got his head on straight?"

"I'd react the same way, but hopefully with a little more decorum than you did."

"…'Decorum,' seriously? When did we even learn that word?"

"I don't know, but it sounded like it fit in that sentence."

As usual when Naruto had a problem or issue and he wasn't able to talk it out with one of his precious people, he'd talk it out with himself. Or, at least, one of his kage bushins, it was close enough anyway.

"Should we apologize to the old hag?"

"Naw, she'd never let us live it down."

"Maybe we should just get her an apology gift or something? I remember hearing Sakura mention doing something like that for her mom once."

"What would we even get the old hag? Besides booze and raffle tickets?"

Naruto shrugged at himself before continuing with his training. He could figure this out later, he had a mission to start in a few hours and he wanted to get the rest of today's training in.

-**Scene Change**—

Sasuke was still having trouble focusing his mind and keeping it from wandering off. He wanted to be free of this stupid psych eval room/prison, but at the same time he didn't. His mind was just too screwed up for anything to really be what he wanted. What he wanted seemed too mutable, too changeable. He wasn't even sure of what he _needed_ anymore! It drove him crazy, but only when he was with it enough to be aware of what was wrong. He was getting better at staying in the here and now, but considering the fact that he was only able to keep his mind focused for something like eight minutes, that wasn't really saying a lot.

He hated his meetings with the Yamanaka in charge of his case. Not because he thought of himself as higher than the woman helping him, but because of the fact that he needed the help at all. He wouldn't have minded the help all that much when he was younger, but that was before he had lost his entire clan as well as his older brother. (He was still slightly positive, at this point, that Itachi had been the first true victim of the Uchiha Massacre.) He didn't really trust anyone enough to help him at this point. If he had been able to trust someone, it would probably be one of her former teammates, but he'd be fighting against himself just as much there as he would be fighting them. He wasn't fighting against himself at all with the Yamanaka, just fighting the Yamanaka.

"Uchiha-san, we are going to need to discuss this at some point."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

He ignored her as much as possible. It was likely that if she had been a man he wouldn't have ignored her quite as much. It didn't really have as much to do with feeling superior, though. It was more that he was still slightly afraid of the female population of any village. They were always certain that they would be 'just perfect' together with him, helping him to reestablish his clan. That creeped him out almost as much as Orochimaru had when he'd first met the sannin.

"Uchiha-san, really-"

He blocked out whatever else she'd been saying as his mind drifted off.

She noticed and cut herself off with a sigh. She really wasn't looking forward to explaining this to Shizune-san. Yamanaka Suri didn't think she'd be able to help the Uchiha anymore than she already had. In her report, she'd put in a request to have him transferred to someone else in the department. As a side note, she mentioned that having a male speak with him, a male that he knew but only well enough to go by the reputation, might have a better chance at working with him.

-**Scene Change**—

She gathered her gear quickly and made sure everything was strapped into place. She was going on a slightly longer mission than she usually embarked on. She had looked up what intel they had on the topic she would be setting out against. She wasn't particularly worried. In fact she was rather looking forward to it.

How many people are given a recon mission to find out what you could on the Akatsuki as well as taking out any of them if the opportunity presented itself? If she believed in luck at all, then she would be praying that her luck would finally kick in and she'd find someone amongst the Akatsuki who would destroy her completely rather than keep some form of her around.

The chances of that weren't very likely.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18:**

The battles between the Oto shinobi and the Konoha shinobi didn't so much rage as they were quick and brutal. Smaller villages were caught in the crossfire, just as they had been during every other war between shinobi villages. There was one small difference, the Konoha shinobi seemed to be a little more concerned about the civilian population, even if the only thing they were able to do was evacuate the people and relocate them (usually to Konohagakure proper itself and not one of the outlying villages that ringed it in the forest.)

Konoha had learned the hard way that you shouldn't kill off your client population. It also helped that several of those civilians were willing to pay for safe passage to Konohagakure 'proper' in order to be in a safer location. Very few enemy shinobi were able to reach the walled in village after the failed invasion several years prior due to the extra traps and vigilance of the Konoha shinobi. Everyone who was a shinobi was given guard duty and taught how to set traps throughout the forest. The one shinobi that was able to use the Shodaime's bloodline went through the forest and 'redecorated,' for lack of a better word. The Forests of Konoha didn't look as they had the last time the snake sannin had ventured near his former home.

This led to several shinobi being sent out to evacuate outer lying villages from Konoha and moving them behind the more solid walls. These missions didn't pay very much initially, but they paid out in the long-term as the civilians would usually come. If they didn't come when initially evacuated, then they would have to pay in order for a shinobi guard to escort them to the village safely. The Hokage and her ninja didn't have the time to mollycoddle villagers that weren't going to listen to good shinobi sense. They had a war to deal with, after all.

"How are the evacuations going for the Eastern villages?"

"They are almost completely within the walls, Hokage-sama."

"The Western villages?"

"Finished early this morning, Hokage-sama."

"The Northern and Southern?"

"The Northern villages have become stubborn about their evacuations, but most of the elderly and children were moved regardless. The Southern villages won't start arriving until late this night or early tomorrow morning."

"Excellent. I want Teams Three through Nine from the ANBU Corps to do a sweep throughout the Forests and report back the short of it every half hour at the most. When they are relieved, I want them to update the maps with anything and everything that they saw when the return before going off shift for five hours."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

She waited until her aid had left before turning back to the small pile of papers in front of her. She looked through the reports that Jiraiya had sent on the Akatsuki's recent movements again and wondered just what they were up to. They had been silent for far too long into this war.

-**Scene Change**—

Her plans to infiltrate the Akatsuki only worked if she could find them first. That proved to be far more difficult than her master had initially thought. He probably wasn't pleased with the news that his best fighter would be away from the front lines for longer than he had anticipated. She didn't really care all that much for how he felt about it and she was far enough away that his temper wouldn't be a problem for her until she returned. It wasn't like he could just squander his resources and shinobi going after someone who would come back as soon as her mission was over. He had started a war and now he had to deal with all the planning and problems that came along with it.

Some of it he was able to foist off onto some of his underlings, but there was still quite a bit that he had to pay attention to as well. This did not please him, mostly because it was already taking longer than he wanted to crush his old home. Of course, his anger at the failed Oto/Suna invasion had been legendary and had only been relegated to the background when he'd been able to acquire the youngest living Uchiha. The loss of that acquirement had sent him through the roof.

Especially since he hadn't been able to generate any _new_ Uchiha in the timeframe in which he'd had the younger one.

It wasn't that he hadn't tried; it was mostly that he hadn't had much, if any, success. The first, and only, success had been lost in an accident in the lab she'd been kept in. Orochimaru had his suspicions that it hadn't really been an accident and so had sent his best agent into the one direction that he'd thought had taken his new toy.

That was the real reason for her mission to the Akatsuki.

She had mostly come across old or mostly abandoned bases during the first few weeks of her mission. The only people still there weren't any help and knew nothing. They were disposed of quickly and efficiently when she learned that they wouldn't be of any help to her. Their deaths were quick and mostly painless and a few of them even thanked her for putting them out of their misery once she was finished interrogating them. There was no information left behind in the hideouts save for, sometimes, the location of the next one.

She felt like she was being lead somewhere she didn't want to go, but she had little other recourse but to follow the breadcrumb trail left in front of her. All other avenues that she tried produced nothing, so she followed the trail she had and remembered to send back her reports to her master.

She would find the girl or find out what had happened to her. She didn't want to bring the girl back to her master, the snake, but she didn't really have much of a choice. She would delay her return as much as possible, but that wouldn't do much good but hopefully let her get caught in the crossfire in the war. If she was lucky, she'd be killed and the body of the little girl would be destroyed so that she couldn't be used by her master ever again. If she was unlucky, then she'd be captured and the girl or her body taken by those who would have no mercy on the child. She knew that she would escape, she was less human than others and would have no problem killing others in order to return to her master's side as ordered, but she hoped that she wouldn't have to worry about returning the live child to her master.

She didn't hold much hope for the child. There were few people who were both strong enough to protect the child and had the moral guidance to want what was best for the child rather than what they could get from the child. She didn't know anyone, personally, who was like that. Her master had made sure of it. He had no place for morality except for a strict loyalty to himself and his own goals. Everything else was garbage unless it had some use to him.

Her eyes narrowed as she realized that her next stop would take her closer to Amegakure than she knew her master wanted her to get.

Amegakure was the one place that she'd only been to once, other than Konohagakure (which she'd never stepped foot in for any reason). She had tried to infiltrate it before on her master's orders, but had never been successful enough to get in undetected. She'd killed those that she needed to in order to escape, but had needed to run for it in the end. She had run for several days, not wanting to stop and find out what would happen to her if she was captured and brought to the leader of that closed off country. She had been younger than and not as experienced in how to shake her tail, which was why it had taken her so long to escape. Her master had not been pleased with how long it had taken her to get back to him and even more upset with how her mission had failed.

She didn't really remember what the mission had been, but she remembered the punishment that she had received for her failed endeavor. She wasn't really looking forward to seeing how long she could survive without food or water again if she failed this mission. It was harder to fend off those who her master wanted to impregnate her when she hadn't eaten or had any water but what little dripped into her cell for almost a week. She had been younger then and she was older now. She could probably last longer now than she could then, but she wasn't sure if she'd be able to withstand everyone coming at her at once after too long.

Her master's attempts might not go about as she feared, but they might. He was a great man when it came to taking advantage of every moment he could.

She closed her eyes for a moment to clear her mind before opening them and continuing on her way towards Amegakure.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19:**

In a tree overlooking the border between the country of Ame and the Land of Oto crouched the Oto Youkai. The trail followed the border between the two countries for a good half-mile before it turned sharply into the wall that separated them. She wasn't sure if the boy had been taken over or under the wall, but it was likely that she would never be able to recover him, not without breaching the 'we leave you alone you leave us alone' agreement that her master had with the leader of Amegakure.

She was fairly certain that her master was planning to invade the country of endless rain; he had plans to invade everyone. She didn't know when they were supposed to be implemented. She didn't want to start anything off too early; that would land her in all kinds of trouble, not to mention the increased death toll it would have. Not that she really cared about the number of dead, but there was always the chance that the one person to defeat her might be killed before he or she could kill Oto Youkai.

Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of a seemingly more real trail leading off into the Land of Fire. It wasn't obvious that it was a fake trail and looked more and more likely to tbe the correct one the longer she looked between the two of them. She wasn't really supposed to go too far into the Land of Fire either, but she had more leeway with that one than the Land of Rain.

She took the trail into the Land of Fire and though she didn't know it, it was the turning point in the war between her master and his old home.

-**Scene Change**—

Sasuke would never a shinobi again.

A part of him was upset, but a larger part of him didn't really care anymore. The shinobi life hadn't been what he'd really wanted for a long time. He'd wanted the skills and knowledge that such a life would give you, but not for any other reason than revenge. He hadn't really planned much of anything after that. He knew that he'd wanted to restart his clan, but he hadn't really known what that would entail back when he'd first set the goal. He hadn't really known much of anything at the time except that he'd wanted to bring vengeance to his family and then make them proud of him by finding a way to continue the line. Family was everything to a shinobi clan after all.

That was part of why he had made the hunt for Itachi so personal and not really looked for outside help even though he'd known that he'd be more successful with help. No matter how hard he'd trained, there were always skills that someone else would be better at than he would. He was hailed as a prodigy, but he also knew, deep down, that there were better prodigies out there than him. He'd met enough by this point in his life, but he'd been so obsessed that it hadn't mattered.

Itachi had been part of Sasuke's family and that made his death Sasuke's responsibility. It was that simple in the then eight-year-old's mind.

He had spent the last eight years of his life learning everything and anything about shinobi and their skills, even becoming one of the better shinobi himself. The fact that actually _being_ a shinobi means little doesn't soften the blow.

"You will also be limited to moving around in the Village Proper, you will surrender all weapons that you have and will have a guard with you at all times. Normally I wouldn't waste someone on you, not with how messed up your chakra is at the moment, but I can't risk you getting snatched back up by Orochimaru or any other fortune seeker at this point."

No, heaven forbid someone else be able to get the sharingan as anything more than just a transplant.

"I won't be having anyone from your former team watching you, I can't spare them from their positions even if they might be better at subduing you," the Hokage continued to speak, well aware that even though he wasn't looking at her he was still paying attention. "You won't be staying in your old apartment or even in the old Uchiha District either. You'll be staying with your guard and helping out around town wherever you're needed. Do you have any questions?"

Sasuke shook his head and still kept his eyes averted from the Hokage. She nodded in satisfaction before gesturing to the ANBU that was hidden near the ceiling. The shinobi in question left the room and returned a moment later, having sent the message to the Uchiha's guard, who knocked once on the door before entering the Hokage's office.

Sasuke wasn't sure what his reaction should be when he looked up and met the milky white eyes of a Hyuuga, but surprise really wasn't one of them.

-**Scene Change**—

Out of everyone available for the war effort there was one clan in particular that was more than conscripted. The Hyuuga Clan was one of the last Great Clans throughout the Elemental Nations that was almost entirely shinobi oriented. There were a few more out there, but none of them were anywhere near the size of the Hyuuga at present. Even with the mostly at peace times that had been within the last decade, the birth rate hadn't spiked in the Great Clans like it had in a few of the smaller Clans. Even those clans weren't as large as the Hyuuga. If the Uchiha Clan had survived in more than a small handful of people then it would have been almost as large as the Hyuuga, but only if their birth rates had finished picking up.

In short, a great deal of the current shinobi forces for 'at home' defense were made primarily of Hyuuga mixed with other shinobi. They made some of the best watch dogs as long as they stood in each other's blind spots or had a non-Hyuuga standing in their blind spot. Not very much could sneak up on them and attack the Village Proper, this made for Konoha being almost impenetrable once you were within its walls.

It was the Branch Line that was sent out for anything far from the village and the Main Line that protected and stayed within the village for the most part. There were a few exceptions, but they weren't really paid all that much attention to. Hyuuga Hinata was one example of the exceptions. She was of far more use outside of Konoha Proper as long as you kept her near one of her teammates, her cousin or his teammates, or Team Kakashi. She had a hard time working with most of the other Hyuuga in her Clan besides her younger sister and even that interaction was somewhat strained.

"You will be staying in the Branch part of the compound until further notice. I realize that this will be a difficult move for you as much because of the politics of our Clan as anything else."

Hyuuga Hiashi loved his children, even if he didn't know how to express it. He was a harsh man who had lost his wife and allowed that to blind him to many things and when he'd had a chance to come out of it other things had happened. Like his brother dying in his place and being too busy to make sure said brother's son was all right and understood what was happening. And then there had been the years of dealing with the Clan's Council of Elders. They were more of a pain than people liked to believe, especially for someone like Hiashi.

It was a little known fact to all of Konohagakure (or anyone outside of those 'in the know' for that matter), but Hiashi was against the Caged Bird Seal that was used so liberally by his Clan. He'd been raised that it was a necessary thing to have, but at the same time he'd been raised knowing that his brother, his _brother_ was nothing but a slave. If that hadn't been enough for him, then it would have been when he'd had his first child.

He'd held little Hinata in his arms and looked down into her eyes and he knew that he was lost.

If he had any other children, he would have to pick which one would be branded as a slave not only for life, but for death as well. That became more than clear on his brother's death.

He wanted to change things, but there was only so much that the Clan Head could do without making the entire Clan unsafe. The Seal was supposed to protect the Family, not destroy it, but it would if it was allowed to continue. It had already destroyed Hiashi's family, he had let it, but that wasn't the point. How many of his descendants would let it ruin their lives because they didn't change it?

"You will also be staying with the Uchiha and making sure that he follows all of the guidelines laid out in the instructions from the Hokage. I expect you to do the best that you possibly can in regards to your mission and also for you to uphold the family's honor and comport yourself with dignity."

He knew that the next few months were going to be hard on his daughter, but he also knew that she would perform her duties admirably.

"Yes, father."

He had faith in his daughter, in both of them. They would not let him down; they would not let their family down.

Hyuuga Hanabi bowed to her father before leaving his office to begin moving some of her things from her room and into the room she'd be staying in during her in-village mission.

Hiashi watched as his youngest daughter left the room and hoped that his plans would work. He didn't want to place the Caged Bird Seal on either of his daughters, but he would have to once one of them was chosen to be the Clan Heir and the other would become nothing more than a spare that would be placed as part of the Branch Line of the family.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20:**

There wasn't a whole lot that she could do in that situation. She fought back as long as she could, especially when she noted that there was someone who should be in the fight, but for some reason wasn't. He was probably the only one in the group that could defeat her without getting aid from an outside source. For some reason, he stayed back and out of the fight and even out of her visual range. She could hear him well enough; hear his breathing and his movements (he was carrying something, maybe someone?) She was only able to hear him for snatches at a time. There were too many people to keep track of, and she didn't want to be lethal, not when she didn't have to be.

It helped that they were some of the better that Konoha had to offer at the moment and that she had been pushing herself harder than physically necessary in order to wear herself out.

It didn't mean that she was taken down; it just meant that she was able to escape without killing any of them. She might have had a better chance if one of them wasn't a Yamanaka and another the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi. She was lucky to get away without being knocked out and taken in as a captive.

She hadn't wanted to think about what would happen to anyone should she be captured and then awoken within striking distance…

She didn't close her eyes as she continued on her journey towards the last location she'd been told to check-in at. She made sure that no one would be able to follow her.

-**Scene Change**—

Lee made extra sure that the child in his arms was safe when the call came up that there was an Oto Shinobi in the village ruins.

"Don't worry, little one," he assured the child in his arms, "We will keep you safe."

He made sure to keep his tone down and his volume lower than a whisper. He knew that there were many who didn't believe that he was able to talk so quietly. They forgot, sometimes, that he hadn't always been as energetically open with his personality as he was now.

The child, a toddler really, snuffled quietly in his arms, but did not make any other sound. Lee wondered at that only slightly; in his experience there were those children that were quiet and those that were loud. He usually ran into those of the latter rather than the former, though.

He listened as his comrades sometimes called out their attacks while others were performed silently. It was the mark of a good ninja if you could misdirect the perception of your enemies. He longed to join in on the fight (for some reason many of his enemies were surprised by his lack of ninjutsu as well as genjutsu. He would have thought that what he was capable of would have already become known in at least the enemy that he was fighting more and more against.

"She's gone, Kiba and Shino have gone after her, but they probably won't catch her and keep her."

Lee nodded to Ino and turned to accept the length of bandages that Naruto had pulled from his bag. Together Ino and Naruto worked at bandaging the child and then securing him to Lee's back. He was the fastest runner out of them all and had the best chance at getting the child to safety should it become necessary, which in the war they were fighting was.

They didn't wait for their comrades to return to them. They left for the meeting point with Hinata's team without any further delay once it was more than confirmed that the village held no other living human being. They didn't even stop to do more than make sure the fire pyre had finished destroying the remains of the village people.

They were at war. They didn't have much time for anything else.

-**Scene Change**—

She had lost the child. She hadn't found him and she had, had the gall to come back not only empty-handed, but too late to be used in whatever plans he'd had for her when she'd come back. She had missed many of the battles that had happened over the course of the guerilla warfare that had been going on.

She hadn't even brought back any information on the child other than the fact that she was probably either dead or in the hands of his enemies.

Orochimaru wasn't pleased with these results. He wasn't pleased at all.

But for the first time in a long time, she was.

-**Scene Change**—

The group of four continued their journey through the trees without seeing anyone. They didn't say anything out loud and kept all conversation through sign, but even that was few and far between. They were still in a war zone despite the child that was now accompanying them. Said child was strapped carefully and securely to Lee's back with Ino in the lead and Naruto bringing up the rear. The child wasn't asleep, but she was dozing in the cocoon of warmth she had been placed in. She had never felt so safe as she did in this moment.

'Should we stop and check on the girl?' Ino signed behind her back for a moment.

Lee glanced back at Naruto with darting eyes and took in his headshake. He signed back a negative when Ino glanced back at him. She didn't respond, but hurried her pace. They were still almost a half hour from their rendezvous point with Hinata's team. Shino and Kiba hadn't caught up with them just yet, and they weren't certain that they would be able to catch up at all. For all that the two of them worked very well in concert together, neither of them were as well-versed in medic jutsus. If one of them or even Akamaru were critically injured then the chances of them catching up before they reached Konoha were slim to none. If that was the case, then Shino would send one of his faster kikai to let Hinata know, her being the closest known shinobi who would understand a message from Shino.

This made getting to Hinata even more of a priority. If their comrades that they'd left behind needed help, then she would know before they did and likely would have a rough location on where to send back-up.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21:**

Hinata wasn't surprised when the other team she was supposed to be meeting up with was running late. She wasn't even surprised that those that did show up were missing a few members, but she was surprised, and saddened, that the only civilian they had with them was a toddler. She didn't ask where the others were, didn't have to, as several minutes after the first half of the group arrive, the rest of it showed up on the edges of her vision as she kept her bloodline limit active to make sure that those coming really were the people she was waiting for.

"They are close behind you, maybe five minutes out at the most."

All she got in response was a nod as the three in front of her each turned in order to better guard her. She had been alone, but one glance at her using her Byakugan had been enough to ensure they knew who she was. They would take time to find out where the rest of her detail was once they were in a more secure location.

The child on Lee's back sniffled a little and Naruto immediately turned towards her, smiling slightly as he offered her a bit of a ration bar. She blinked at him cutely and tiredly before accepting and quickly eating the food. She snuggled down into Lee's back and fell asleep once more. Hinata kept her attention on their surroundings even if she wanted to coo at how cute the little scene was. She was only human. Ino hid a smile of her own before turning back to Hinata and signing a question.

'Are there any others coming in besides Kiba and Shino?'

Hinata's fingers tapped out a negative response, never taking her eyes off the incoming duo. Once they'd arrived and had a moment's breath, the slightly larger group set off, Hinata in the lead. She kept her bloodline active as the others fanned out behind her, Lee still held in the middle of the group with the child on his back.

-**Scene Change**—

Hanabi is really starting to wonder just why she had been saddled with this mission. Some of her age mates had mentioned that this was either a high honor or a slight against her family. She had tried to keep herself from making similar statements, even if only to herself, when she was first given this task. She was trying very hard to keep negative thoughts out of her mind at this point and was failing more than she thought she ever would.

Dealing with an Uchiha was always difficult, she had heard that this was so from some of the elder members of her clan even when she was a child and there had been many Uchiha in the village. Dealing with Uchiha Sasuke in particular seemed even worse.

"Is there a reason that I can't leave the compound?"

"Yes, Uchiha-san, you were made aware of this when you first were placed in residence here."

"Why am I here and not at home?"

"This is your home now, Uchiha-san." She tried to keep her voice level, but this was a conversation that they had several times a week. If it was a particularly bad week, they would have it every day. This didn't happen often, but Hanabi wasn't in the practice of needing to have patience when not in a combat situation. Having to keep your temper around someone that had turned traitor to your village made it even harder.

Some days Uchiha Sasuke was able to work through some backlog of reports that would have crossed his hands should he have ever taken up the mantle of Head of his Clan. Every decision he made was reviewed by a small collection of people from different Clans, Great and Small. They would do a simple review of the decision and then would pass it on if they found no problems with it. They hadn't needed to step in and withhold a judgment or send the decision back to be remade in several weeks, just over a month. Most of those were during bad weeks, but every so often, in the beginning, they would crop up during his good times. They were evidence that he had never really had to consider making these kinds of decisions on a consistent basis. He was getting better at those, but only when he thought about why they had been returned and read any notes that had been written on the returned decisions.

He would likely never have the full authority of being a Clan Head, especially not of a Great Clan in a village that he had betrayed. No matter the reasoning or even any outside influence such as the Cursed Seal. He just wouldn't be trusted by people whose lives revolved around being a shinobi and all that entailed. He would never be fully trusted ever again, but he would be allowed to help build up the village in any way he could.

"When will I be allowed to live in my own apartment?"

"…" Hanabi's eye twitched ever so slightly, "As soon as you pass your psych eval."

Why had she been chosen for this torture? Did she do something that had insulted the Hokage or someone she cared about?

"Why do I need a psych eval!" Uchiha sounded so insulted by the implication.

She wondered if she would get into trouble if she knocked him out using his tenketsu, but only the ones that would give him a…peaceful sleep. She wouldn't do any permanent damage and he would probably not remember that it was her.

…She'd probably still get into trouble for it. Her dad had been watching her a lot more closely lately, even before she'd been given this babysitting excuse for an assignment. She wasn't sure what had happened to make him do so and she wasn't going to ask. He had his reasons and he was the Head of her Clan as well as her father. He always knew what he was doing and that was enough for her to know. That was all she would have needed a few weeks ago.

She wanted to know why now, after having put up with the Uchiha that had turned traitor on their village. She knew that she was like him in a lot of political ways. She was the second child of a major Clan head and she had worked very hard to get her father to pay her any attention during her years before and then during the Academy. That was where any similarities between them ended. Her elder sibling hadn't been the apple of their father's eye and then gone rogue and slaughtered the whole lot of them. If anything, Hanabi would be more like the Uchiha's elder sibling in this.

Hanabi had activated her clan bloodline at a very early age, though still not as early as Uchiha Itachi had activated his. Hanabi's sister had taken longer to activate her own eyes even if she had before she'd graduated the Academy.

"…What do you do?"

Hanabi didn't startle, but she did blink before turning her attention back on the slightly older teen in front of her. He was staring at her in curiosity, much like a small child would.

"What?"

There was something different about his eyes, something that hadn't been there during any of the previous days that she had watched him. He just stared back at her, not really understanding what was wrong with his question. He shouldn't have asked the question at all; it wasn't something that he had ever asked before, nor cared to know the answer. He knew that she was in charge of watching him even when he didn't know much else.

He had never asked after her personal life either.

Without taking her eyes of off him, she flared her chakra just enough to disrupt a genjutsu but not quite enough to summon any additional backup, yet. Backup came anyway, but stayed on the periphery of her vision.

-**Scene Change**—

The Godaime Hokage withstood the temptation to reach for her one (allowed) hidden bottle of sake. She had been hoping that things would turn out better, a foolish hope, but one that some ninja had anyway. It was something her grandfather had taught her after her mother had died. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Come to think of it, most shinobi clans had a saying like that.

"So you're telling me that not only do we have an ongoing war with a psychopathic Sannin, a war that while we aren't losing, we certainly aren't winning either," she took a deep breath before continuing, "We have a prisoner of war who might as well be a confused little boy for all the good he is to us and last but not least, we have proof that Orochimaru has succeeded in restarting the Uchiha Clan under his village's banner."

No one says the ridiculous, that this could be the first successful attempt. That this could be the only attempt. To say such things would be stupid enough that Tsunade would probably have the person saying it dismissed from service. If they continued to say it, she might just have to put them in prison for being that criminally stupid.

Orochimaru doesn't do single experiments. He doesn't stop trying different variations even when his experiments succeed.

"The only good news is that we not only have one of the children from his experimentation, and she seems to have an attachment to several Konoha shinobi, but we also have the one man in our service that could probably defeat and also train others to defeat, a Sharingan wielder."

There was a long moment of silence in the council room. No one really wanted to be the one to say it.

"It looks like we're going to be sending just about everyone who's free into extra training with Gai-sensei."

Tsunade met the Head of the Hyuuga Clan's eyes. If the man had ever looked more terrified then that moment, it was probably when he had held his first child in his hands. The accompanying awe that had been with that event was absent at this moment. She didn't say anything to him and he didn't say anything to her as the meeting ended.

After everyone had left, Tsunade sat at her desk with the war reports lying in front of her. They were already gone through and had her orders attached. Shizune would not be along to sort them out, but her replacement would be. The man was a small man who had great skills when it came to keeping papers in order and making sure that everything in the Tower ran smoothly. He was a lot better at it than Shizune had been.

Even still, Tsunade missed seeing her ersatz-niece and protégé several times a day.

She didn't reach for the sake, merely picked up the next papers that required her attention and continued with her work.

-**Scene Change**—

She should have been punished longer.

She probably would have been too if the tide of the war hadn't started changing.

She figures that it's partially because of the child she 'let' get away. She also figures that another part of it is because He hadn't been able to create another viable offspring from the Uchiha. He had created plenty and spliced DNA into others of his subjects, but none of them are able to continue their line. All other attempts at 're-starting' the Uchiha sharingan don't so much as fail as the subjects somehow end up sterile. This wasn't too big a problem as far as resources went, until they lost their donor.

Without Uchiha Sasuke on hand to 'donate' genetic samples to use, they have no way of continuing the project if they can't produce a subject capable of having offspring. The one that had gotten away and was even now in the 'clutches' of Konoha wasn't the only success, but it was the one that has survived the longest.

Somehow, the other subjects have been found dead, mostly from natural causes. Some from not so natural causes.

She doesn't have any suspicions about who or what has caused the death of these 'experiments' of her master, but she is grateful for it. She doesn't wish her existence on them.

She is being utilized more and more for missions that involve her going in with a small unit and attacking before running back out without getting caught. They are not always successful in these missions, but that is becoming rarer if she is a part of the missions themselves. She doesn't pay as much attention to the others in her groups as they aren't really teammates so much as people who have been sent on the same mission. They work with one another, but they don't really work with her. They ignore her presence as much as possible.

"Do you think we'll win?"

She paid very little attention to the duo that was setting up a small camp during the latest mission.

"I don't know. At the beginning, I thought that we had a pretty good chance, after all, we have the best of the Sannin with us, leading us." The male that was with their group was pulling out a few rations, they weren't going to bother with a fire, "What, with the enhancements Orochimaru-sama has been giving so many of us, I thought we'd at least have taken and kept some land by now. All we seem to be doing is attacking and then withdrawing."

The female in their group accepted the bar thrown to her and snorted at her companion's naiveté. "This is a war between shinobi, stupid. We don't take and keep land as if this was a war between daimyo or samurai."

She did not take part in their ensuing argument. They did not offer her food and she did not take any out for herself.

Part of her current punishment was that she was only allowed food when injured or when she was in one of her master's bases. It didn't affect her performance, or if it did, her master was far too angry to care.

His need to hold onto his emotions was going to cost him this war, of that she was certain, if she was certain of anything.

She turned abruptly to the still arguing pair, "Silence."

They didn't hear here, so caught up in their argument that they weren't even as aware of their surroundings. At this rate, they would bring down the patrols of Konoha. Though they were not near the hidden village they were still well within its territories.

"Be silent." She hissed, her fingers darting out between them.

They started away from her and both drew a weapon, the female a kunai and the male a shuriken. Both kept their silence as they listened to the forest around them. They did not wait for the patrol to finish making its way towards them. They did not look back and they heard nothing more than the whisper of the wind in the leaves as they leapt from tree to tree. They would hear nothing more than that. The shinobi of Konoha are raised in the trees of their forest and know how the wind moves within them intimately.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22:**

Luck was not on the side of the Oto Youkai and the two she was with.

Their pursuers were one of the best tracking teams to come from the Academy since the end of the last Great Shinobi War. It also didn't help that one of them was on the back of a rather large dog that was bred to sniff out his prey and be able to actually catch it.

Kiba was silent as he rode on Akamaru's back, well ahead of his two teammates.

They had been running a routine patrol of the surrounding area, Kiba and Akamaru hadn't been the first to notice the intruders, but they were the closest and so had immediately began tracking them once they'd been given the heads up from Hinata. Hinata's eyes had spotted them moments before Akamaru had picked up their scent and they had been off running, Kiba in the lead on the back of his dog.

They caught up with the intruders at the edge of their territory, but that didn't necessarily stop them. They were in a war after all. No one bothered with words as they engaged in battle.

Shino and Hinata took on the two shinobi that actually wore the Sound headbands. Leaving the strange figure in black to Kiba and Akamaru. Kiba didn't' have time to pull off his and Akamaru's transformation techniques and the dog's size turned out to be more a help than a hindrance.

The woman was competent enough to dodge every attack that Kiba tried against her and she moved far too fast for him to use any ninjutsu. Their battle was almost entirely taijutsu as the woman didn't seem interested in using anything else. Akamaru would lunge at the woman and almost have her pinned down before she'd escape from his hold and try an attack of her own.

She was a vicious fighter, but Kiba could tell that her heart wasn't really into it. Being a vicious fighter with almost animalistic tendencies it was easier for him to notice this kind of thing. It helped that without the use of his clan's ninjutsus his mind was far more clear in this fight than it would have been otherwise. He could see how powerful she was and how deadly her attacks were and he could see that while she was better than him, she wasn't willing to kill him if she didn't absolutely have to.

He would have asked her why she was fighting then, would have asked her why she was working with the Sound and yet did not carry any identifying headband or even a mark on her clothing that would signify her allegiance. But he didn't have the time to breathe enough to ask her before he was sent flying into a tree. He righted himself enough that he didn't hit his head, but he wasn't quite fast enough to stop himself from landing wrong on one of his legs.

The sharp snap of the bone echoed through the forest as the other combatants tensed back into readiness. It was only then that it became apparent that the woman in black was the only intruder still alive or conscious. She tensed in preparation to either fight or flee when Hinata spoke.

"Drop your weapons and surrender yourself."

Her voice was cool and calm and nothing like her normal self, though she was still quiet. This was her war persona, which was frighteningly easy for her to slip into so long as she wasn't surrounded by family members. She'd even managed to slip into it a few times around Naruto without tripping herself up afterwards when they were back in the village.

She did not falter as the woman turned and fled, rushing after her with her Byakugan active and her feet hurrying to keep up. Shino was right behind her, though she didn't spare much thought beyond that. Kiba would be safe as long as Akamaru was with him and both of his teammates knew that the dog would sooner die than leave his human.

The woman was fast, faster than Hinata had thought she would be, but Hinata was nothing if not adaptable when it came down to it. She had learned this from the best, even if she had learned it by watching from behind trees.

She enhanced her legs with her chakra just enough to give her an added boost to catch up to the other woman. It helped that her target wasn't using chakra the same way. In fact, through her Byakugan, Hinata was able to see that the woman wasn't using any chakra at the moment at all, though her chakra system was well and didn't appear to have anything wrong with it. She didn't give it much thought as she reached out and quickly closed off the few tenketsu in her reach, causing the woman to falter slightly mid-leap.

She continued on, though she was slightly slower, allowing Hinata to hit a few more tenketsu before the woman turned abruptly and launched a series of kunai at the Hyuuga, forcing Hinata back. The woman took this opportunity to continue her trek away from the Land of Fire and this time, she succeeded.

-**Scene Change**—

She didn't stop until she was far enough away that she knew the trailing shinobi would return to their captives and injured teammate. Even then, she didn't completely stop, just slow down enough to take stock of her smarting limbs.

It had been a very long time since someone had not only landed a hit, but had that hit continue to affect her even hours later. She would have stayed for a fight, but she had already pushed the limits of what she could do against her master's wishes for the day. That, and she was fairly positive that the Hyuuga wouldn't kill her if she could incapacitate and capture her instead.

"When will I be allowed the freedom of death?" she whispered to the trees before disappearing through them.

-**Scene Change**—

Tsunade frowned down at the man in front of her. He was a recently caught shinobi from Sound, but he didn't have the same obsessive need to die for her old teammate as many of the others they had come across during this war. He wasn't talking, but he wasn't trying to kill himself with some kind of hidden poison. He had no seals on his body that would stop him from talking either. She did not feel pity for him as he was her enemy. She knew that her interrogators would wring what information they could out of him, likely killing him in the process.

She was here to oversee a small part of it before moving on to other duties.

She watched as Ibiki entered the room. He would be conducting this interrogation as the man had been caught with another Sound shinobi and an unidentified woman close enough to their village to warrant his attention.

"What were you doing in the forest?"

They didn't bother with asking for his name, it meant little to them who he was when they already knew that any bloodlines that the Sound had were likely stolen in one way or another.

The man said nothing.

"Where were you going?"

Again, nothing.

"This is going to be a very tedious session if you don't start talking."

Still, nothing.

Ibiki reached for one of his instruments.

-**Scene Change**—

Hinata wasn't sure what to do. Her team was temporarily off patrol duty until Kiba's leg finished healing. It wouldn't take too long, he'd received top notch treatment at the hospital and the bone was already knit back together. He just needed a day or so to let it finish setting just in case. The war was going well for them, but that didn't mean that they weren't all being kept on their toes. Being off patrol duty meant that they would be utilized in doing something else.

At the moment, that meant that she was assisting her sister in some rather delicate work at the moment.

"Why are we here in the first place?"

"When we looked closer at his chakra system, which is something I'm still wondering about by the way, we found an unusual snarl in the brain as well as around the heart."

"Why are you wondering about it?"

Hanabi sighed with exasperation, "I'm wondering how we missed something like this. This should be something that was caught before it became this much of a problem."

Hinata listened to the rest of her sister's complaints as they slowly worked to unsnarl the tiny knots of chakra in the Uchiha's system. They were really quite miniscule in size and had been overlooked in the initial exam that the man had when he'd been brought back to the village. It hadn't been a quick exam at all, so the fact that this had been missed was either a really big mess-up on someone's part or evidence that this was a problem that steadily grew worse rather than being this bad in the beginning at all.

Neither were good things to be happening around someone like Uchiha Sasuke.

He was currently laying on the bed comatose, having been placed under a genjutsu strong enough to keep him out for several days. He was also hooked up to an IV so that he wouldn't become further ill during his convalescence. It also helped that he wasn't able to talk while they worked. Hanabi had grown sick of listening to his incessant questions before the problem with his chakra system had come to light.

It was rather sad that it was the lack of self-centeredness that tipped her off to something being wrong.

"Can you believe how arrogant he is?" Hanabi continued in her quiet ranting. Her voice didn't raise in volume nor really increase its intensity, but it was complaining nevertheless. Hinata was used to this as she was really one of the few people that Hanabi would complain in front of.

It wasn't that Hanabi was comfortable with her sister, it was that Hinata wasn't really much of a person to Hanabi, even when they were working together. They didn't work together all that much and Hinata didn't often spend time with her sister anywhere else, so she was somewhat grateful for this time even if it was spent listening to Hanabi complain about someone who sounded an awful lot like herself.

Hinata hid a smile behind a quick drink of water before continuing on with her work.

-**Scene Change**—

Naruto resolutely kept his eyes on the kunai he was sharpening. So what if he hadn't been allowed to visit his best friend since he'd been brought back to Konoha? Sasuke was within the village and receiving good care and would hopefully not try to escape his home. He was well aware that there was something wrong with Sasuke and that the other man was in the secure part of the hospital, but he still wasn't allowed visitation rights.

At least he wasn't alone in that ruling, he thought as his eyes drifted away from his task for a moment towards one of his other friends.

Sakura was double checking that her team's med kits were well stocked and that they would not be in further trouble should they be injured whenever she wasn't on a mission with them.

Sai was working on some of his paintings and not on anything that would actually be useful in a fight unless he was using his ink techniques. His paintings were simple calligraphy practice that he planned on gifting to one of the others in the room with him.

This had become a regular thing that the three of them would do whenever they all had downtime together. It was an attempt to bring Sai further into being a part of their team and help with any questions he had on how to interact with people. A great deal of the time they were silent, though, and this suited them just fine for the moment. The silence was only randomly stress-filled when one of the two original Team 7 members let their thoughts drift towards their other raven-haired teammate.

Such as one Naruto's thoughts were doing now.

Sakura ignored the sudden tenseness in the room with practiced ease as she continued to go through the med kits. She'd be done in only a few minutes and would address the problem then if it was still needed.

Sai, on the other hand, carefully put his brush down and looked up at his blonde teammate.

"Why do you keep worrying about him?" he asked with his usual tactlessness.

Naruto gave up on his kunai for the moment, "He's my friend."

"He is in the best care possible for a traitor-"

Sakura pinched her lips and darted a glance at Naruto as the blonde's face went slightly red, but didn't interrupt the artist.

"-and I'm sure that Hokage-sama wouldn't let anything happen to him anyway."

Naruto drew in a short breath to calm himself, "Sai, even though I know that there's nothing I can do, I still worry because that's just what you do when you care about someone."

Sai blinked in slight confusion before nodding, "I see."

It was clear that he didn't, but neither of his teammates mentioned that.

The room returned to its previous silence as everyone turned their attention back to what they had been working on.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23:**

There wasn't much time left.

The war was drawing closer and closer to an end. Her master wouldn't believe it and in fact had started becoming more and more desperate in his attempts to take back 'what was rightfully his' from Konoha. Each attempt was more devious than the last, but none had been completely successful.

He'd sent a small group of curse-mark enhanced shinobi to retrieve the child and had them caught and killed by Konoha.

He'd sent a few of his carefully cultivated bloodlines picked up after the end of the Bloodline Purge in the Land of Water. They had been captured, some had been killed and others were certainly under better lock and key than Orochimaru could currently crack without losing one of his best operatives.

He'd even sent an even smaller force of two people along with his Oto Youkai only to have them fail. Only his little pet had returned and even she was becoming more useless now that several of her tenketsu were closed and nothing that had been tried seemed to reopen them.

The fact that she didn't seem to be bothered by this only served to enrage him further. He wasn't surprised by her attitude towards her own life. He had watched it be programed into her, had ordered it, in fact. It was the fact that such a thing had worked a little _too_ well in these circumstances where other attempts to program other things haven't _worked_. She is nothing if not professional in all things and does not need to take pains to keep her emotions under control because he has ensured that she _doesn't have any_.

Except he seems to have failed, again.

Orochimaru hates failure like he hates nothing else.

Not even Konoha.

-**Scene Change**—

She is not punished, not physically. She is even allowed a full ration for the day of food and rest. She doesn't need all that much, but it is more than she has been allowed for a long time.

She listens to the murmurs of the people around her when they aren't aware of her presence. They are worried. Orochimaru has become more and more unstable. Not that he hadn't been unstable before, it was kind of a necessity for any skilled shinobi. If you were going to kill for not just a living, but for your life, there was only so much the mind could take before it began to look for a way out. The people of Sound had become as eccentric as the people of Konoha, but more suspicious about who knew about it or if it would be acceptable to their leader. Orochimaru didn't seem to care what his people did so long as they didn't question him.

Orochimaru, instead, had fallen farther and farther into his experiments and had stopped seeing other people as actual people. In his madness, he had turned everyone and everything into an experiment. This had started in Konoha long before he had been exiled from the ninja village. He had only grown worse throughout the years in his bitterness. What little sanity he'd had left after the years was gone. He no longer looked to the continuation of his village or even of his life. He wanted Konoha to fall and never recover.

Misery loves company, even if they don't know that they're miserable anymore.

The people of Sound talked and what they talked about was frightening. Before, there had been a sense of order to things, but now, it didn't matter if you talked or didn't. Sometimes you disappeared even if you were the one who _defended_ Orochimaru-sama rather than the other way around. This was not her master. Her master was cool, calm and calculating. This man, this unstable man, wasn't any of those things anymore and anything of his past personality that popped up did so only sporadically.

_'At this pace,'_ she thought quietly to herself, _'the war will be over without any pitched battle at all. It will end as a ninja war should rather than how it began.'_

Sometimes, just sometimes, she still wondered why she hadn't been included in the initial assault on the village of her master's birth. He had wanted to win, but had held so much of his resources back. Almost as if he had expected to lose even with Suna on his side.

_'Though he did use a whole lot more troops from Suna than from his own village. I wonder if he had some ulterior plan at some point before he completely lost it as he has now.'_

Her thoughts were abandoned as her master's silver-haired second in command entered her small chambers.

"Orochimaru-sama has summoned you." He sounded rather irritated at being sent to fetch her.

She followed after him silently. If she hoped for anything other than her own end, she would hope for more work to do. Having time to think for herself was not something that she was familiar with and so it was not something that she was equipped to deal with.

When she entered his, for lack of a better work, throne room, her master was standing over a rather large map that showed his current bases as well as what they knew of their enemy. He did not look pleased with what he was looking at. He didn't bother to glance up when they entered the room.

Kabuto bowed to his leader and quietly left the room, leaving the Oto Youkai kneeling before her creator in silence. She did not take the time or energy to count how long she stayed int hat position as her master continued to ponder the map in front of him.

Finally, he spoke.

"I am…displeased…with your latest mission's results."

He paused for effect, much longer than he would have normally.

She said nothing, didn't even look up from where her eyes were firmly planted at the floor.

He growled before continuing, "Your report was lacking in reasoning in just why you thought it prudent to allow your pursuers to live instead of taking them out."

Again, she said nothing, no change in her posture to telegraph any thoughts. She was the prefect blank.

"I know that you could have killed them, my pet," he murmured as he drew closer to her position and used his foot to tilt her head up so that their eyes would meet. "Why did you let them go?"

"I did not think that I could defeat the Hyuuga heir," she finally spoke in her monotone voice, "Her skills were greater than I had anticipated and I wasn't sure that I would be able to escape."

"You don't think that she would have been able to kill you?" he sneered.

"I did not think I would be able to escape being captured."

He scoffed and released her face, allowing it to resume being turned towards the floor.

"I do not make mistakes," he hissed, "You would not have been _captured_ you would have been victorious!"

She said nothing as he continued to rail against her decision. She continued to say nothing as he grew angrier at her passivity and lashed out at her physically. She did not try to catch herself as her body impacted the wall and crumpled to the ground. He made no other move towards her.

"Clean up," he sneered as he turned to sit and look over his maps once again, "I have a mission for you and I expect you to be in top condition, because you are not going to fail me _this_ time."

-**Scene Change**—

It wasn't quite a last bid, but it was close enough.

Her master was desperate and he wanted things to be over quickly and in his favor. She didn't know all of the details; she had never been trusted with anything more than she needed to complete a mission. She was no confidant of his and he never spent more time with her than was absolutely needed. When she was younger and he had been, if not less mad than at least more clever, he had been distant and cool with her. As if she were nothing more than a plant to check up on now and then to make sure it was still alive. Others had trained her and raised her, if what her childhood had been could be called such a thing.

She was nothing more than a highly trained animal to her master, an animal that he could take his anger out on and not worry about her turning feral on him. She didn't know what he had done to her mind and body that made it physically impossible for her to cause harm to his person. It couldn't be a genetic thing, because she wasn't able to attack him even in the new bodies that he transferred himself into. She didn't know much about her master's personal technique, but attempts in her younger years, when she'd still held out hope, had proven that nothing she did would ever work. The single attempt after he'd finally perfected the transfer between his body and another had been her last bid for freedom, either in mind or body.

Her little rebellions where she tried time and again to actually die had been few and far between.

Her one consistent success, her refusal to bear children, was probably the only accomplishment she would ever have. Her many victories in the field were not for herself, but for her master. She lived after each mission, and that was her only regret. The only regret that she would allow herself.

"Is everyone in position?"

There was a positive response.

She made eye contact with the leader of their mission and nodded. Yakushi Kabuto smiled coldly back at her.

"Proceed."

They moved.

-**Scene Change**—

Team Kakashi was in a waiting room down the hall from the operation room that their missing team mate had been in for the last hour.

Sasuke had grown worse and the snarl in his chakra system had somehow telegraphed into his muscular system. He was lucky in that it only affected the muscles near his heart rather than in his brain. Add to that, the snarls hadn't been in the heart muscle itself, just the ones around it that protected it. They had caught it early enough that they were able to go in and straighten them out, along with the chakra lines around them, so that it wouldn't happen again or get worse.

However, Sasuke would never be an active shinobi again, even if he passed the psych eval and would never betray the village again. He wouldn't be capable of taking any physical mission. At best, he'd be stuck on desk duty for the rest of his career. With the way his rehab was going, he probably wouldn't ever get back to his career anyway, but this physical setback was far more permanent.

His former team mates hadn't been able to speak more than a few greetings to him since he'd come home and they were short of desperate to know how he was doing and how he was taking this news.

If he was even aware of it yet.

They looked up when Shizune entered the waiting area.

"How is he?" Sakura asked. She hadn't been allowed to be part of the operation as she was 'too close to the patient and wouldn't be able to keep a cool head.' Tsunade wasn't taking any chances when it came to a traitor team mate and didn't want to put her own apprentice and Naruto into a position where they would have to make the same decision that her teacher had made when he'd let sentiment cloud himself from executing Orochimaru when he had been found to be a traitor without any outside help at all.

Just because she was willing to rehabilitate Sasuke and maybe even let him have some kind of employment and life within her village didn't mean she wasn't going to make the same stupid mistakes that her own genin sensei had made. The minute that Sasuke tried to turn traitor again, with or without persuasion, he was going to be taken out. There was a reason that she had him under the eyes of a Hyuuga who was well trained in her clan arts. This way, she didn't have to use any extra ANBU on him that weren't already part of the Hyuuga Clan or assigned to the Uchiha as a possible danger. The less people she had to assign to the village without actually compromising the safety of its inhabitants, the more she was able to send out on missions during this war.

Shizune smiled calmly at the group in front of her, "He made it through without any more complications and his recovery should be about normal for his physical needs."

She sighed at their hopeful expressions, save Sai, who tried to look hopeful but still looked rather flat in comparison.

"Unfortunately, none of you will be allowed to see him just yet."

"Do you know when we will be, Shizune?" Sakura asked as politely as possible through her constrained hope.

Shizune tried not to wince. Tsunade actually had an excuse to not be giving these people close to her bad news. She was finishing up the post operation necessities for the Uchiha and then had to get back to her office and continue going through war reports. Unfortunately, with Sakura being too close to this particular case that meant that the only person left to give this kind of bad news was Shizune.

"I'm afraid that your orders in this regard are still much the same as before."

Which meant that until he passed his psych eval and stood trial for his actions, they would be lucky to say hello to him in passing. Just as it had been since he'd been brought back to Konoha.

Their faces fell and Sai managed to look the slightest bit apologetic for the others. It helped his face look less flat, but most of the emotion was in his eyes.

"We figured as much, but thanks anyway." Sakura whispered as Naruto hugged Shizune and thanked her as well.

"At least you're the one telling us and not someone who doesn't care." The blonde added.

Shizune watched as they left the hospital and thought to herself that it didn't make it any easier to give them the news.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24:**

They were going to infiltrate Konohagakure and attempt to recover one of two things: Uchiha Sasuke or his offspring.

If they were able to recover both, then they were to do so. If not, then they needed to come back with at least one of them or a main branch Hyuuga or a Yamanaka, or anyone that they were able to get that would lessen their punishment for failing in their mission.

They were not to be captured. If it looked like they wouldn't be able to get out alive, then they were to suicide and take as much of Konoha with them as possible. If that failed, then they were to redirect Konoha and let them torture them into giving false information.

There were several other contingency plans in place, but she didn't bother going over them again. They all knew what would happen should they fail in the worst possible way and none of them were willing to live through it, though those loyal to Orochimaru in their own fanatical way would be willing to as they believed that they would deserve all of it and more for failing their precious Orochimaru-sama.

She didn't bother learning the names of the others that would be taking this mission along with her. They would die on it, or die after failing it and returning to her master in shame. Their bodies would likely continue serving her master, but who they were, their personalities, such as they were, would be long gone from the empty shells.

Her task was to retrieve the child along with Kabuto. The others had been sent after Uchiha Sasuke. His being recaptured was a slight chance and she knew that the child was the real goal of this mission. With that child, they would be able to train a whole new generation of Uchiha without having to worry about concerned former teammates coming after him. They could continue experimenting on combining the sharingan with other bloodlines or any other number of things.

She could tell that Kabuto was looking forward to such things, even if he wasn't giving any indication of it at the moment. He was a good shinobi, but he was an even better scientist. She had not been at his disposal for long when it came to such things, but she knew enough to not need to be.

They split from the other group several kilometers into the Land of Fire and didn't have any radios, short distance or otherwise. They would be, for the most part, on radio silence for this mission. They were ordered to pretend that the other group didn't exist, especially if doing otherwise would jeopardize either mission. She and Kabuto continued through the thick forest until they were close enough to catch glimpses of the Wall around the village proper at which point they slowed to what would be a crawl to another shinobi, but still a heavy clip for a civilian.

They were neither of them dressed in their normal clothing, but in the faded browns and muted greens of travelers. Neither of them carried any metal weaponry of any kind and in fact the only thing metal on either of them were Kabuto's glasses. Her hair was pulled into a loose tail and his had been hacked short enough for an old man, but badly enough that he would be seen as poor. He was not wearing a genjutsu, but cleverly done makeup to make him appear old enough to be her father. His glasses were of the same prescription, but not the same make nor were they made from any material that was indicative of only one place of origin.

The dropped out of their clip and moved slower, he with a faked limp and her with a grace that wasn't trained, but could be taken for natural talent.

Along with their papers, they were the ideal image of a young daughter escorting her aged father on a small trip for business or possibly to visit a family member.

It took them the better part of what was left of the morning and early afternoon to reach the main entrance of the village proper through the Wall. Once there, she stood quietly as her 'father' rummaged through his small bag and produced the travel-worn papers that were almost expired, but dated in such a way that would indicate they had left from the Land of Waves when it said they did and would hopefully arrive before the papers expired. The papers were stamped by the gate guards and they were let into the village without many words spoken between them other than the simple and polite hellos, goodbyes and thank yous required.

They wandered around the open market for a few hours, making sure that they did, in fact, purchase a few things and chatted amiably with almost everyone they came into contact with and argued a few times with others. They did all very normal 'we're visiting a "hidden" ninja village and seeing what it would be like to maybe apply to live here as civilians themselves. Most likely after the whole shinobi war was over so that they wouldn't have to deal with the extensive interrogations that everyone wanting to stay more than a day or two in the village had to undergo.

They checked out different inns throughout the village as if they were looking for a room before deciding on one that was cheap enough for those of their apparent price range, but at least it had a decent roof, pallet and facilities for use. They left what minimal shopping they purchased in there and asked around for their supposed family member that their aliases heard had moved to Konoha. Of course, they didn't find the 'family member' and so were overheard to mumble that maybe their 'cousin' had stopped in one of the outer lying small villages that were also considered a part of Konohagakure.

What they were really doing was noting where any patrols within the village and trying to find out without tipping their hand where the child was locating within the village. They did not see her on the first day of reconnaissance. They retired to their inn room that night and slept well, without seeming to take heed of the patrols that followed them throughout the village.

They did not speak of their mission, not even in code. For all intents and purposes, they were exactly who they said they were. Any DNA samples taken showed that they might have had a common ancestor, but were not actually closely related through blood. This was not unusual for families in the Land of Waves with the economic desolation they had survived throughout the years.

They don't see anything of use to them the second or even the third day.

It's the fourth day that anything happens. The fourth day that their target is spotted out in the market with her wartime guardians.

-**Scene Change**—

The little girl didn't exactly hop up and down, but the glow in her eyes was just as bright as if she were doing so. Her dark hair was short and manageable as well as clean and cut in an attractive style for a four-year-old. Her dark blue kimono had lighter blue bubbled running up on side and a lovely pale yellow obi that her little fan was tucked into. She reached out a careful hand and smoothed it over the half-hidden accessory. It had been a gift from one of her guardians' cousins and she had accepted it with a quiet cheer.

It was the first present, other than the clothing that she now wore and the three-peopled family she was now a part of, that she had ever received. She loved it all the more because it had green leaves swirling around pale pink lotus petals embroidered across it. It reminded her of her savior, Rock Lee. She loved him with all her little heart and would have followed him around on every assignment if he hadn't sat her down and explained that some of his assignments were very dangerous and he wouldn't be able to bear it if she were injured because of his actions!

"You are such a sweet flower and I would Hope that you shall have the Opportunity to Grow Strong with the Flames of Youth!" he had exclaimed. "I would never Forgive myself, should you be injured and Unable to Grow Thusly!"

She had smiled slightly at the way he liked to talk. She knew that he spoke like that to everyone and not just her, because he was even more exuberant around the other members of their small house.

She was out with two of them now. Her savior was away on a mission, though he was still in the village, she had been told. She held tightly to her companions' hands and resisted the urge to swing back and forth. She wouldn't have had a problem doing so if Lee were here, but she always felt more shy around anyone that wasn't him. She had been hesitant at first, but he had kept coming back and was nice to her and read her stories before bed if he wasn't on a mission. If he did have to leave for a mission, even one in the village, he always brought her something back. Sometimes it was just a pretty leaf or a flower petal, but sometimes it was a new book to read to her or even a small empty book that she kept the other offerings in. He helped her press the plants that he brought her into them and secure them with little plastic squares so she could look at them whenever she wants.

She loved Rock Lee and didn't think that there would ever be someone that she could love more.

She peeked up at the young woman holding one of her hands. Tenten smiled down at her.

"Is everything all right?"

She nodded and looked around the market again. She didn't make eye contact with anyone else in the market and didn't stare at any one thing longer than anything else. She hadn't quite gotten to the point where she was comfortable letting people know what she wanted. Unless they were Lee, of course.

"Tenten, do we need more rice?" her other guardian asked.

Tenten pulled a small list from her pocket with the hand not holding the little girl's. "…It looks like we don't, but we do need to get more curry." She didn't wait for her companion to say anything before continuing, "Neji, Lee's threatened to start waking us up and forcing us to join him during the first part of his morning workout if we don't get it."

Neji sighed in a very put upon manner before leaning over and grabbing a box of curry powder and paying for it before slipping it into the basket on his arm. They were almost done shopping for the day, but she still wanted to be out and looking at things. She was half hoping that she'd see Lee on one of his missions even if it was only a quick glance.

A quick glance was all that she needed and all that she wanted, because she'd be able to bring it up in her mind until she saw him again. She'd always had very good eyes; even her old guardians had said so.

In fact, she winced and sunk behind Tenten while her grip on the young woman's hand tightened painfully, she was seeing one of her old guardians right now.

-**Scene Change**—

Lee had finished his mission early and was heading out to the market, hoping that he would be able to meet up with his teammates and their Adorable Charge. He had already reported back to Hokage-sama and even picked up a few friends to travel to the market with.

"Soooo, what's she like, your little girl?" Naruto grinned over at his friend.

Lee grinned broadly, but didn't slow his pace as he began to gesticulate while describing his new charge, "She is most Youthful! Her eyes are as bright as stars and most Expressive and Brilliant in their darkness."

"How can dark brown eyes be 'bright as stars'?" Sai asked curiously.

"How did you know that her Eyes were such a beautiful darkness as Chocolate?" Lee asked in his slightly-less-booming-than-Gai-sense voice.

"You said that they were dark, but didn't specify which color. Most people think of dark brown eyes as black eyes, but they are really just very dark brown so that the color is close to the same black of the pupil. The difference is usually only seen during eye exams of some kind."

Naruto blinked at his friend as Lee grinned even wider.

"Your Knowledge of this topic is most Youthful!" Lee exclaimed before returning to discussing the original topic, "You are correct, her eyes are a Beautiful dark brown. Her hair is almost as dark as a raven's wing and she has the most Adorable Smile. Her Cuteness rivals even that of my Beautiful Sakura-chan! I am most Blessed to have been given Permission to have my Darling Tomiko-chan as my ward!" he finished with a grin both wider and somehow shinier than either of his two companions had ever seen.

"Why did Obaa-chan give you permission to take guardianship of her?" Naruto asked.

"Tomiko-chan was most Afraid to be left without a Guardian and she was so Attached to me that I offered and Hokage-sama accepted it."

Sai didn't frown so much as the very edges of his lips turned down. "Why would she be so afraid?"

"Her village and likely her family, were killed by the Sound during a shinobi war, why wouldn't she be afraid for her life?"

Sai gave Naruto a blank look, but didn't say anything further. They were all aware that there was probably more to the situation, but if they hadn't been told what it was then there was a reason for that.

A scream pierced the air.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25:**

She wasn't sure who screamed, just that it was going to make things harder. The Konoha shinobi tensed up and each of them had a hand drift to their nearest weapon pouch while their eyes quickly and efficiently scanned the area. She wasn't sure that she would be able to grab the girl and get out of the village successfully. Even having back-up in the form of one of the Sound's more accomplished shinobi wasn't reassuring in that many shinobi of Konoha knew both his face and many of his jutsu. They may not have known all of the techniques that he used during his experiments, but he wouldn't have as much of an edge in battle as he would have before the war started.

She didn't bother to share a glance at Kabuto as he moved away from her as if he were just an old man startled by the sudden scream. She had already floated away from him earlier as if she were looking more closely at some cloth while he'd moved on to look at something else in the market. She moved towards her goal as she girl flinched further behind the young woman she was already hiding behind. The girl wasn't looking at her, but at her team leader, Kabuto.

She looked absolutely terrified.

If she could feel anything at all, the Oto Youkai would feel regret for what she was going to do.

In almost less than a blink of an eye, she had the girl in her arms and was racing towards the gates as her team leader attacked the ANBU that had come down to see what the disturbance was. It was the perfect distraction, and she didn't think that many had seen her grab the child.

The child who was too frightened to make any more noise than a small sub-vocal squeak as her eyes immediately centered on her captor. Her eyes widened, but not in recognition as she had feared. It would seem that being kept away from her master's other experiments (he'd feared at one point that she'd find some way of instilling her attitude towards breeding in them) had paid off for him after all. (She'd privately thought that she'd never be able to instill such feelings in another as she wasn't entirely certain what feelings she'd inspired in herself to go against one of his most important edicts. If an experiment isn't able to be replicated, than it is a failed experiment.)

She was not so lucky that others _didn't_ notice her with a child tucked under her arm. A familiar young man in a bright green jumpsuit was soon running along with her. He held out his arms.

"I can take my Tomiko-chan now." His voice was stern, but not quite demanding.

It was obvious that he was giving her a chance to hand the child over before he got violent. The child reached out towards him as well and she had to slow just enough to tighten her arms as the child was no longer clinging to her.

She didn't need to recognize the young man's companions to know that they or at least the pale youth in black recognized her. His eyes narrowed and she had to dodge as one of his ink creatures appeared out of nowhere and took a swipe at her head at the same time the man in green lunged for the girl in her arms. She barely managed to avoid getting hit from him and keep her hands on the child who was now trying to escape by clawing and biting her.

She didn't take any notice of it and tightened her arms enough to make the girl gasp for breath for a moment and stop her struggles but not damage her. Unfortunately, this just made her opponents fight all the more to reclaim the child. She tried to continue moving towards the gate or the wall in any direction, but with three of them fighting against her and the child randomly trying to wriggle out of her arms, she was having a hard time doing so. She couldn't risk damaging the child and she'd have to tie the child to her if she knocked her out. The three young men weren't letting her get anywhere far enough away to do all of that.

If they had been anyone else, she might have been able to do it, but between the green jumpsuit wearing one's speed, the artist's ink creatures and the jinchuriki she wasn't able to put any kind of distance between them. It was all a flurry of swipes and dodges that she was able to keep at a stalemate only because of the enhancements she'd been born and trained into. The blonde only seemed to use what she'd heard referred to as 'Academy jutsus' as he was obviously unwilling to risk injury to her cargo. The artist also seemed to pick up on this, but his ink techniques continued to swipe at her as he had also noticed that she did what she could to protect her burden.

That child was important to her master and her mission and she could not disobey in this matter. She would not allow the child to be hurt even if it was the only way to leave this village. She had pushed too many orders to the edge recently and had no leeway in her mind about this.

She was tired as well, even with all her enhancements. The jinchuriki and his companions were strong opponents and she was handicapped with holing the child. She couldn't attack, couldn't even defend really, only dodge and try to reach the walls.

Kabuto was nowhere near enough to give her aid and the other team wasn't nearby either apparently. She was on her own in this.

"Just give us the child and I will let you go." The green-wearing young man said earnestly. "I will not pursue you."

She didn't have to glance at his companions to know that they were not being included in this bargain. If she somehow managed to get away without the child, she wouldn't have to worry about his speed and it was something to worry about.

One of his strikes made contact with her arm and she felt the bones in her arm creak under the force. The child must have felt it too, because she renewed her attempts to free herself. Her opponents noticed as well even though her expression remained blank. It did not help that they were joined by a young woman with long brown hair and pale eyes with veins in sharp relief against her temples. A young woman that was familiar enough that she knew the battle was lost.

-**Scene Change**—

Kabuto didn't bother trying to go after the child once he saw that his companion had a hold of her. He made it his business to create as much panic and disturbance as possible without drawing attention to himself. He knew that it would likely be a lost cause in that regard anyway, but if he wasn't identified until he was a lot closer to the Wall, then he would have a greater chance at escaping. He was certain that his companion would at least be able to get outside of the Wall with their objective and he could always find her once they left the village and take the girl then.

They would have pursuers, of that he was certain, but he could leave behind the failed experiment and return the child to Orochimaru-sama while his temporary teammate kept the Konoha shinobi from following them.

It was too bad that he hadn't taken into account that the failed experiment would be detained inside the Wall. If he had, he might have gone after her and been able to at least take the child and get out of Konohagakure.

-**Scene Change**—

The rest of the fight went quickly and soon after the Hyuuga had appeared, she had lost hold of the child and been forced to defend herself from the Gentle Fist Style. Her chakra points were closed off one by one and it hampered her regenerative abilities so that she wasn't healing as quickly as before. Before this war, she had never gone up against a Hyuuga and so had still not learned how to force her regenerative abilities to focus on the closed off chakra points in a way that would help her the most. Her master hadn't considered it either, a mistake on his part that would cost him not only his Oto Youkai, but the mission objective he had sent her after.

She continued to fight even after she was no longer able to heal as quickly. She was repeatedly told to stand down or surrender and that she would receive a merciful trial and execution. She had been ordered to never be captured by her master's old village. He hadn't wanted them to see just how she had been created and find some way to use it against him.

The final blow was dealt from a combined attack. The Hyuuga aimed for her head while the artist's ink creatures held her stuck to the ground and the jinchuriki used his upgraded rasengan attack on her heart. She was dead before her body hit the ground.

Later, during their debriefing, her opponents would remark that she had a beautiful smile cross her face moments before their attacks connected.

Her body was taken to the Torture and Interrogation Department and studied to see how Orochimaru had created her. Her brain was still largely intact and was also studied by the Yamanaka within that department to see if they would be able to recover any of her memories. They recovered several locations of bases that Orochimaru had. At least one of them had been abandoned by the time they got there, but the others were systematically wiped out after being plundered for any information and captives.

-**Scene Change**—

"There must be something done."

"We already have a guardian for the child; there is no need to move her once again."

"She is far too important to leave her with a shinobi that, while his career is very distinguished, has no abilities with chakra whatsoever."

"Need remind you that she still refuses to be with anyone long term that is not Rock Lee? We cannot risk alienating this child from Konoha. Rock-san's devotion to Konoha is only outstripped by Uzumaki Naruto's devotion and with him rearing the child, with aid from his teammates then it is possible that, for the first time in decades, we will have an Uchiha Clan that is 100 percent devoted to this village."

"What of the other Uchiha?"

"Uchiha Sasuke should be released from the Recovery Ward in the hospital by the end of the week. He has regained enough mental acuity to take charge of his own life, but his chakra pathways will never recover. It is just as well as he would never become a shinobi of Konoha ever again."

"Will he remain in the care of the Hyuuga?"

"He will until we have finished this war with Sound, though he will remain being watched by the ANBU until the day he dies."

Tsunade nodded in agreement with the council and soon left the meeting room and returned to her office. They still had her old teammate to flush out of hiding.

She picked up a piece of paper that had appeared on her desk the moment she sat down. A smirk spread across her face.

Yakushi Kabuto had been captured.

-**Scene Change**—

Orochimaru ran from outpost to outpost, but wherever he tried to go Konoha seemed to be there first. He gnashed his teeth together as he tried to return to the largest of his bases: Otogakure. His people were no longer as loyal as they had been before and he was angry enough that he was losing control of who took the brunt of his temper. The people on the streets cleared out of his way as fast as possible, but there were those that still littered the ground once he had passed.

He knew that it was only a matter of time before this last installation of his was taken by his enemies and he'd have nowhere else to turn to.

He had no allies and no friends and certainly no most loyal subjects. His greatest experiment, his hidden shinobi village, was falling apart around him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

-**Scene Change**—

The Third Great Shinobi War ended with the capitulation of the people of Otogakure. They were far more afraid of their leader than any enemies he had made. Their leader was found within the bowels of his last fortress attempting to escape through the tunnels he'd prepared there for such an eventuality. He was unaware that soon after the capture of his second in command that one of the higher ranking shinobi in his village had agreed to meet with his enemy and help them to end the war. He was cut off and stuck in the tunnel that was reinforced against using earth elemental jutsus to escape.

He was taken deep into Konohagakure's Torture and Interrogation Department and never heard from again. His old teammates had made sure of that with sealing techniques to keep him in his cell. Tsunade oversaw some parts of his interrogation and his execution was done quietly with only those who needed to be there.

Danzo and Jiraiya were not invited, but that was mostly because they had been placed in charge of overseeing to Konoha's newest satellite installation: the last base of Orochimaru, Otogakure. They had several other shinobi with them, but had been placed jointly in charge of the former hidden village. Tsunade had sent Maito Gai along with them to make sure that both of them stayed where they were supposed to be and to keep them on their toes.

No one really expected Gai to be crafty enough to do this job well, but he did so admirably.

Uchiha Sasuke was released to his former teammates care once the war was officially over and he moved in with them. He was never the same as he had been before and sometimes would get lost within the small house that the four of them resided in. Sai was the best at dealing with the former Uchiha heir as he was better able to control his emotions when Sasuke would have some of his 'episodes' and act much more like a small child of five than the person that his teammates knew. He continued to see Hyuuga Hanabi for check-ups on his chakra system every week.

Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura held joint custody of their former teammate and made sure that he always had someone nearby. They noticed that he enjoyed time spent reading and made sure that they had a small library's worth of books and scrolls available that didn't include any jutsu. Neither of them wanted a closer relationship than simple friendship with one another, but neither really spent time looking for someone to settle down with.

Sai lived with them as well and continued his art work on the side. He even got the others to work more on their penmanship for their kanji so Naruto's reports were never returned with a note from the Hokage demanding that he explain things in person because she couldn't read his chicken scratch and didn't Jiraiya ever teach him how to write legibly? He remained impressed with the devotion his new teammates showed for the damaged Uchiha Saskue.

Rock Lee was able to formally adopt the little Tomiko and he made sure that she knew he would always love her even if she could use chakra and he couldn't. She was very sensitive about that issue up until she started at the Academy. He continued to try and woo the Lovely Sakura-chan until she agreed to a date. His teammates eventually moved out of their shared quarters soon after Tomiko started at the Academy. Lee made sure that Tomiko knew she didn't have to become a shinobi, but that he wanted her to be able to fight off any attackers and use the basic jutsus taught at the Academy so that she would have more to work with other than the taijutsu that he taught her.

Tomiko was formally granted the title of Uchiha Heir when her sharingan was activated after the attempted kidnapping, but she wasn't removed from her home and received any training on the use of her bloodline from Hatake Kakashi. She would not be eligible to take the Head of Clanship until she was at least sixteen years of age. She did not have many meetings with the only other Uchiha in the village unless Lee had taken her to visit when he was also visiting. She would not learn the bloody history of her clan until she was at least twelve years of age.

Uchiha Tomiko would eventually become the first Uchiha to become Hokage when she turned twenty-five, but that is another story.

This was the story of a young woman who wanted freedom more than anything else in the world. She finally achieved that freedom though it was only through death.

**The end**

**Author's Note:** I apologize for how fast this seems to be for the end. I needed to end the story for a time limit I'd given myself for this month. I will be rewriting this story, but I needed to finish the first draft before doing that. It will be at least 6 months before I start working on the rewrite for this story, but I hope that it will be better for the time to cool off on it. I will also go over the reviews left by all you lovely readers and correct any mistakes I have made on the way. Thank you for reading.


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